Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
The Washington Nationals put up a football score on the Marlins last night in a 15-7 blow-out. By doing so, interim-manager Miguel Cairo was able to rest his entire “A” bullpen, and even get CJ Abrams off of his feet for a couple of innings. Tonight, the Nats have LHP Mitchell Parker on the mound as he tries to solidify the finish to his season.
The Nationals finished 37-53 (.411) under the prior management as of their firings on July 6. If the Nats can go at least 8-11 to finish this season, that would set interim-GM Mike DeBartolo and Cairo‘s record at 30-42 (.416) or better, and ahead of their predecessor’s marks. While that would still be a disappointing 67-95 record with an 8-11 finish, that is still much better than what looked like a lock for 100-losses a week ago.
Including today’s game there are 19-games remaining in this season, and 59-wins in the books. How close can the Nats get to the 72 wins that Vegas set for their pre-season Over/Under? Probably won’t happen as they would have to go 13-6 to get there, however, that should be the goal.
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— Interim manager Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
I believe in [Crews]. I know he did it before. He’s going to be fine. He’s going to be good. It was nice to see him get a couple knocks today and homer. It was nice to see him grinding. At the end of the day, it will pay-off, and you saw the results today. Just do it. … How you react to [failures], and come back every day about your business is what matters.
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The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with, CJ Abrams at +3.5, James Wood at +3.2, MacKenzie Gore at +2.8. Add those up, and you get a total of +9.5 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
Good at-bats. We tried to get to the starter, and we did.
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The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.26 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.35 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 4.67
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: 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):
