Photos by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
The Washington Nationals have had more ups and downs this year than the elevator in the in the media lobby. A gut-punch loss last night, and watching James Wood mightily struggle in a second half collapse is beyond troublesome. He is now pacing worse than Mark Reynolds’ MLB ignominious record of 223 strikeouts, set in 2009.
It is really the tale of two parts of the season for Wood. The first 87 games versus the past 61 games is the difference between batting .294 versus .200, and an OPS of .958 versus .609. Great to terrible has taken Wood from MVP consideration to not know who he really is. In addition, Wood’s defensive woes have returned too. He’s been a -6.0 OAA in those past 61 games.
The Nats have activated RHP Sauryn Lao and optioned RHP Orlando Ribalta to Triple-A Rochester. While Mason Thompson and Ribalta have been the weakest links in the bullpen, they sent Ribalta back instead of Thompson who gave up five runs last night to take the loss in that 10th inning meltdown.
There are 10-games and less than two weeks remaining in this season, and 62-wins in the books. They still need one more win to avoid the dreaded century mark in losses. That has to be the first hurdle to cross.
❝
— Interim manager Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
Sometimes the games happen like that, and there is nothing you can do about it. Just got to come back tomorrow and keep fighting.
❞
The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with, CJ Abrams at +3.2, MacKenzie Gore at +3.1. James Wood at +3.0, Add those up, and you get a total of +9.3 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 -10. That is actually quite the improvement over last year’s -18 for Abrams who is on pace to finish at -11.
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.
❝
— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game
We got our chances. Nothing we can do about it. We’re going to keep fighting, and like I said, we got to come back [Wednesday] and fight again.
❞
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.19 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.48 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 4.76
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.85
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 4.20 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.76
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.00
Atlanta Braves 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 179 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
