The Washington Nationals returned home last night after a quick west coast swing that finished with three games in Kansas City. A 3-and-3 road trip gets the Nationals back to face the two best teams in the NL East with the Phillies in for 4-games followed by a 3-game series against the Mets.
The Nationals send Brad Lord to the mound to face former Nats draftee, Jesus Luzardo, in the first game in this series. Maybe the biggest news was in the pre-game when the Nats’ highest paid player, Nathaniel Lowe, was designated for assignment (DFA) or as they say in corporate America, “You’re fired.” While Lowe hit a huge grand slam yesterday, that didn’t save his job. He will finish his Nats’ tenure as the team’s second worst position player in WAR at -0.7 and saved only by Keibert Ruiz (-1.1 WAR) who occupies the bottom spot.
After the Lowe move, Dylan Crews returns from nearly 3-months after an oblique injury on May 20th, and Crews gets the start in right field that will shift Daylen Lile to left field with James Wood at the DH, and Josh Bell taking over at first base.
With Lowe gone, the future Nats roster is certainly going to have much less offseason drama. The team could have taken Lowe’s grand slam as a start of something, but they weren’t willing to take that chance and given him any more rope to see if he was going to figure it out. Lowe was not traded at the deadline because, in the end, they didn’t have a team motivated enough to take a chance. That led to a real August skid for Lowe who only amassed three hits in August.
Now there is no debate on whether Lowe will be an offseason non-tender. He becomes the fourth offseason acquisition who has been DFA’d, and if you add the trades of Amed Rosario, Kyle Finnegan, and Michael Soroka, the only players remaining from the offseason acquisitions are Bell, Paul DeJong, Shinnosuke Ogasawara, and the injured Trevor Williams. The only one to figure into having a good shot of making the team next year is Ogasawara. The team is looking even younger with Lowe gone. The Nats are already the youngest team in baseball.
“The bullpen has been ready, they’ve been settling down. They’re doing an excellent job.”
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.2, CJ Abrams at +3.0, MacKenzie Gore at +2.7. Add those up, and you get a total of +8.9 WAR. The issue is the large gap between those players and the next tier.
On defense, the OAA stats showed some improvement with a good defensive game yesterday. Jacob Young leads the team at +11, and CJ Abrams is on the opposite end at -9. That is actually quite the improvement over last year’s -18 for Abrams who is on pace to finish at -12.
These are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good. The issue is the consistency on this team.
“Today, it was a team effort — Offense, pitching. That’s what we’re asking.”
— Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.03 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.84 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 3.86
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.55
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 3.28 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.14
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.09
Philadelphia Phillies vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 6:45 pm EDT
TV: MASN
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app; In Spanish on DC 87.7 FM and La Pantera 100.7 FM/1220 AM. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 176 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
