Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats
The Washington Nationals returned to D.C. early on Wednesday, and had a rest day on Thursday. Today, they begin their final weekend before they depart to their offseason homes. If you could bottle up Wednesday’s game — we wouldn’t want the season to end. What a win for the Nats.
Maybe the most significant part from that Atlanta series was the resurgence of James Wood with three homers in the two games he played in that series and no strikeouts. On Tuesday, he started his night with a double then in his next at-bat he sprinted to first base on a groundout and was out by one stride, and in his final at-bat, Wood hit a homer off of a lefty reliever. On Wednesday, he crushed two homers. That was the All-Star we fell in love with in the first half of the season.
Whatever clicked in for Wood — you hope it continues for this final weekend. There are a few other of Wood’s teammates who need great finishes to their seasons. Daylen Lile is competing for Rookie of the Year votes, and Dylan Crews is trying to get on a hot streak of his own. Brady House needs a hot weekend to get out of negative WAR, and CJ Abrams wants to finish with an OPS above .750.
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— James Wood said after Wednesday’s game
It definitely feels a lot better going into the offseason, knowing that you kind of got out of the other end of it — instead of kind of feeling like you’re searching going into the offseason. So it’s good to have something that you can kind of stick with going in the offseason, for sure.
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The bullpen usage looks like this:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with,, James Wood at +3.3, CJ Abrams at +3.2, and 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 +14, 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 -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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— Interim-manager Miguel Cairo said after Wednesday’s game
It was nice to get a .500 road trip. That was awesome to take two out of three against the Mets and 1-2 [in Atlanta]. It was awesome. The guys fight. We put some barrels on the ball. Good pitching from the bullpen, and from the starting pitcher. So it was a team win.
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The Nats finished 37-53 (.411) under Mike Rizzo/Davey Martinez, and you are correct, if the Nationals go at worst 2-1 to finish the season, they would go 30-42 (.416) under Mike DeBartolo/Miguel Cairo. That would still be a disappointing 67-95. And that is still 5-wins under the pre-season Vegas odds. It sure would be nice to win tonight in Atlanta.
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.14 and that places the starters at 2nd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.61 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Andrew Alvarez 2.31
No. 4 Starter: Cade Cavalli 4.23
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 4.12 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.69
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.17
Chicago White Sox vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 6:45 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 175 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
