The Washington Nationals pulled off the improbable last night with a win over the Phillies in a 9th inning stunner with a first blown save tagged on Phillies’ closer Jhoan Duran. The stars of the game were Riley Adams with a 3-run homer in the first inning, and key hits by Dylan Crews and Daylen Lile in the 9th inning to combine for the two runs to get the Nats a 5-4 win, and to extend the Nats to a modest 3-game winning streak.
Last night, big credit to lefty reliever, PJ Poulin, who went nails in a depleted bullpen to get the final six outs of the game in perfect fashion with three strikeouts to earn his first career win. This is a pitcher who was pulled off of the waiver scrap heap to make his MLB debut on August 5.
Based on the .600 winning percentage since Dylan Crews returned to the team, the Nats have themselves on a pace to finish the remainder of the season with 20.4 wins and 13.6 losses. That seems like a lot of crazy talk.
How can Crews have that type of immpact with only has a +0.2 WAR? His intangibles are off the charts. Get 10 more wins and the Nats avoid a 100-loss season, and that level of failure felt like a certainty just two weeks ago. If the Nats win 18+ more games, they would actually finish exactly where the Vegas lines had them. Again, highly improbable to beat the 71-wins from last year.
On the lineup card, Lile will remain as the DH with Crews in right field, Robert Hassell III in center, and James Wood in left.
❝This is what playoff baseball is all about. If we want to get to where we want to get to, we have to play in environments like this. … This is playoff baseball.❞
— Dylan Crews 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 +3.1, MacKenzie Gore at +2.7. 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 +12, and CJ Abrams is on the opposite end at -8. That is actually quite the improvement over last year’s -18 for Abrams who is on pace to finish at -10.
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.
“We were trying to get attention of everyone who got on second, that we could steal. We’re going to put pressure. We’re going to play aggressive.”
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.05 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.70 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 2.82
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.83
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 3.46 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.30
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.04
Washington Nationals vs. Philadelphia Phillies
Stadium: Citizens Bank Park
1st Pitch: 6:05 PM EDT
TV: MASN2
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):
