The Washington Nationals were in situations to win with James Wood batting on both Saturday and Sunday, and Wood did not come through. This team seems to go as starting pitching goes and Wood’s bat. Put those together and the Nats win most of those games. The reason the Nats were in every game in the Phillies series was because of the bullpen and the back of the Nats lineup. The Nats’ bullpen in the Philly series gave up only 1 run over 11⅔ innings.
Tonight, the Nats start a 3-game series against the New York Yankees, and by chance the Nats have their Top-3 pitchers going with Brad Lord tonight, MacKenzie Gore tomorrow night, and Cade Cavalli for the finale on Wednesday afternoon.
On Saturday, I was critical of interim-manager Miguel Cairo who has struggled with pulling starting pitchers PRIOR to the self-destruction button going ‘kaboom’. Well, yesterday afternoon he yanked starter Jake Irvin at 2⅓ innings in a 3-0 deficit — and it showed that it almost worked. The Nats clawed back to a 3-2 game with a chance to win it in the 9th inning.
Of note in today’s lineup, Daylen Lile is out with a stomach ailment. He will be replaced in the lineup by Jacob Young who was the offensive and defensive star of yesterday’s game. Yesterday’s game highlighted how great defense can help a struggling pitcher. Irvin got a huge assist on two robberies by Young, but Dylan Crews was a few feet short of gloving a line drive that scored two runs. It shows the value of defense when the Nats pitching and Wood and Abrams are struggling.
Of the active players, Wood has the lowest position player WAR since Cairo took over as manager, and much of that is due to a 42.9 percent in that span of 36 games. Imagine if the Nats had the same Wood who carried this team through the first few days of July? Maybe Yankee Stadium will help Wood with those short home run dimensions.
Yes, we are 80 percent complete on the season, and for the playoff contenders this is the sprint to the finish nearing those final 30-games. After this series, the Nats only have two more series against teams with winning records: The Cubs and the Mets.
❝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 Friday’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, 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 +13, 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 swung a little bit out of the strike zone [on Sunday]. ❞
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.11 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.59 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 6.03
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 3.46 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.40
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.04
Washington Nationals vs. New York Yankees
Stadium: Yankee Stadium
1st Pitch: 7:05 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 178 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
