The Washington Nationals’ wins seem to be inexplicably tied to a decent start by their pitcher and James Wood delivering an RBI. They didn’t get either yesterday and lost 8-1. Tonight’s hopes are on starter Brad Lord continuing his dominance.
For the Mets, they have righty Kodai Senga on the mound, and Nats’ interim-manager Miguel Cairo will counter with a very left-handed lineup in the game. Tonight will have Daylen Lile at DH, possibly because of his issues on defense.
“[David Peterson] has got our number, I guess. We’ve got to do something about it.”
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.0, CJ Abrams at +3.0, MacKenzie Gore at +2.9. 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, 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 +12, 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.
“When you’ve got a pitcher like that, that you know is a ground ball pitcher, you have to make sure the ball is up, and you’ve got to stay through it. You cannot be just trying to pull. You’ve got to stay to the middle of the field, right-center if you’re a right-handed hitter.”
— 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 5.82 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 2.20
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.83
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 3.26 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.30
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.04
New York Mets 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 180 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
