The Washington Nationals looked to be in great shape going into the into the 7th inning. Interim-manager Miguel Cairo went to his bullpen and allowed starter MacKenzie Gore to book another really good start on his season. The problem was Clayton Beeter walked two batters with one out, and Konnor Pilkington came in to face Kyle Schwarber who greeted him with the game-winning home run. Pilkington would only get one out and get pulled after a 4-run inning for Orlando Ribalta. That was three pitchers to get three outs in that 7th inning.
Once again the weak links on the team are getting exposed. It really doesn’t change the offseason wish list as to what this team needs. Certainly two shutdown bullpen arms. For Pilkington — and in his defense — he seems to pitch every day even if he doesn’t come into games. The night before, Pilkington was warming up in the 9th inning — and not used, which is called “dry humped” in the baseball lexicon.
In today’s lineup, Dylan Crews will be the DH, and we once again have seen for the third straight game an outfielder rotating into the DH role.
“We have pitchers in there that have got to come in there in situations like that and do their job,” Cairo said. “And they’ve been doing their job. Today, we just hung two sliders that Schwarber and [Harper] didn’t miss. Yesterday, we got [them], and [they] got us today. Sometimes it goes like that.”
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.1, CJ Abrams at +3.0, MacKenzie Gore at +2.9. Add those up, and you get a total of +9.0 WAR. The issue is the large gap between those players and the next tier, and of course the negative tier after them of which many of those players are off the roster.
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.
“That was a good game. MacKenzie, that first inning was a long inning. He kept his composure and threw five good innings after that. He kept us in the game.”
— Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.99 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 3.26 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.14
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.04
Philadelphia Phillies vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 4:05 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 177 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
