Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats
The Washington Nationals are down to their final 9-games of the season. With just 62-wins, there is no way to sugarcoat it. The good vibes will only come from a strong finish and meaningful upgrades in the front office and coaching staff.
One player who just got demoted is Mitchell Parker. He was relegated to the bullpen which means the team will finish the season with a 5-man rotation. Parker just pitched into the 8th inning on Sept. 9 then pitched a dud this week against Atlanta. It was so predictable given past performance. For interim-manager Miguel Cairo, he seems to follow what his predecessor did about getting more from his starting pitchers. That ruined a 3-0 scoreless 5.0 innings from Brad Lord when he was sent out for the 6th inning this week, and the Nats collapsed.
There are 9-games and just over a week remaining in this season, and 62-wins in the books. The team got swept by Atlanta in 4-games making this a game that maybe Andrew Alvarez can be the stopper and deliver a Nats win and end this losing streak.
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— Interim manager Miguel Cairo said after a game this week
Sometimes the games happen like that, and there is nothing you can do about it. Just got to come back tomorrow and keep fighting.
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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 -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 a game this week
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 and fight again.
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The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.18 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.56 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 4.18 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.76
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.00
Washington Nationals vs. New York Mets
Stadium: CitiField, Queens, New York
1st Pitch: 7:10 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.
