The Washington Nationals are finishing up their August schedule in this final weekend of the month, while currently mired in a 6-game losing streak. The Nats went 0-12 with RISP and left 13 runners on-base in last night’s game that resulted in a 4-1 loss. That is a new level of ineptitude.
There was a bases loaded egregious missed call from the home plate umpire, Derek Thomas, that would have tied the game at 2-2. Nats’ assistant hitting coach, Chris Johnson, got ejected for yelling at the ump. That was Johnson’s second ejection of the season.
The Nats have Jake Irvin on the mound. He needs to finish strong this season is an under-statement. Today, he is tasked to be the stopper.
For some pregame concerning news, MacKenzie Gore was placed on the 15-day IL (retroactive to 8/27) with left shoulder inflammation and recalled Mason Thompson from Triple-A Rochester.
With today’s game, there are just 28-games remaining in this season. The Nats only have two more series against teams with winning records: The Cubs and the Mets.
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— Interim manager Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
We left a lot of guys, less than two outs, on third base. Those are the little things that we talk about. Doing the little things to win ballgames. Move the runner over, put the ball in play with a man on third and less than two outs. That’s the little things that we got to do consistently. We don’t want to hit 10 homers in one game or three homers. So that’s the kind of baseball that we got to play it — and we got to fix that.
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The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.2, CJ Abrams at +3.3, MacKenzie Gore at +2.9. Add those up, and you get a total of +9.4 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 -9. 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.
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— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
“It was nice to see Mitchell Parker pitch like competing. He was throwing strikes. He was attacking the hitters. … It was nice to see him come back and be who he can be, and it was really good to see that.”
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The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.23 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.58 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 5.11
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.94
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 3.84 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.40
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.15
Tampa Bay Rays 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 176 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
