MIAMI, FL | Josh Bell delivers the game winning 2-run home run in 2021; Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
The Washington Nationals needed a clutch hit from Josh Bell yesterday, and they got a pinch-hit 3-run homer that gave the Nats a win. Several Nats stepped up in that 9th inning including Bell, Robert Hassell III, CJ Abrams, James Wood, Daylen Lile, and Brady House.
For the Nats today, Cade Cavalli gets his first start in Miami. Hopefully, he can replicate what he did in his first Nats’ start of his season.
Including today’s game, the Nats only have 20-games remaining in this season and just six series starting with today’s 4-game series in Miami. The Nats have 58-wins at this point in the season, and now must go 5-15 or better to avoid 100-losses. A winning month of September should be the goal with less than 3 weeks remaining on this 2025 season. How close can the Nats get to the 72 wins that Vegas set for their Over/Under? Probably won’t happen as they would have to go 14-6 to get there.
The new-look lineup continues now with the look we saw in Saturday and Sunday’s wins with Abrams at lead-off and Wood batting after him. This was a lineup look that TalkNats had been asking for going back a couple of weeks.
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— Interim manager Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
The guys, they’ve been resilient. Like I’ve said before, they battle to the end.
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The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with, CJ Abrams at +3.4, James Wood at +3.0, MacKenzie Gore at +2.8. Add those up, and you get a total of +9.2 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 -9.
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
If you’re in the big leagues, you better be able to hit a fastball.
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The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.27 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.31 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 4.85
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.87
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 4.20 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.71
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.15
Washington Nationals vs. Miami Marlins
Stadium: loanDepot park, Miami, Florida
1st Pitch: 6:40 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):
