Photo by Andy Ward/TalkNats
The Washington Nationals fly back to the DMV on Saturday for consecutive exhibition games on Sunday and Monday against the Orioles in a road/home 2-game final tune-up before Opening Day in 11 days. Time flies. After today, there are just six Grapefruit League games remaining and of course Thursday’s Spring Breakout game.
Manager Blake Butera has penciled up a starting lineup 1-8 that looks like your March 26 lineup for Wrigley Field.
Yes, Jacob Young is still recovering from that deep wrist contusion suffered in early February when teammate Bryce Montes de Oca hit Young on the wrist with a fastball during “live” BP.
That injury to Young gave an opening to Joey Wiemer who has been given the bulk of the work — but he hasn’t exactly impressed with his two hits in 25 at-bats for an .080 batting average. On top of that, he allowed a 2-run home run yesterday when the ball bounced off his head as Wiemer fell backwards, jarring the bullpen door open.
The team will have to decide on whether Young is ready which looks doubtful at this point. That probably, by default, gives Wiemer and Robert Hassell III the final outfield spots even though Christian Franklin has been the most impressive. The starting rotation battle is between Jake Irvin and Josiah Gray for the №5 spot. The №2 catcher battle is between Drew Millas and Harry Ford. And it looks like Andres Chaparro will get the final 1B/DH bench spot over Abimelec Ortiz. And Jose Tena looks like a lock for the final bench spot. That just leaves 15 bullpen arms competing for eight spots as we detailed on Friday.
Left-handed pitchers Mitchell Parker and Andrew Alvarez were both among the cuts on Friday and optioned to Triple-A Rochester.
❝We want to make sure [Parker and Alvarez] know that the expectations for them are super high, Don’t just go [up] there and go through the motions and pitch in Triple-A; go dominate and show that they need to be back up here. That’s what we want from all of our guys that aren’t necessarily breaking with our team.❞
— Butera said
Additionally, Yohandy Morales was cut yesterday and will not make the team. He was the MVP of Winter Ball in Puerto Rico, and he had a real chance of making the roster. But he couldn’t replicate his winter numbers and will start the season in Rochester. The weather is 30°F there today with snow expected. That feels more like a punishment.
By default, Wiemer might be the only surprise to make the roster. But who knows, maybe President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni has a surprise or two.
The Nationals are 11-6 with three ties so far through the first 20 games. Throw in the 5-1 win against Venezuela’s WBC team, and they are 12-6. That’s the same Venezuelan team in the WBC Final-4 after defeating Japan. If only Spring Training records were an indicator of what will happen in the regular season.
At this point, we only have 20 Spring Training games in the books and the one exhibition game, and no batter has more than 32 official plate appearances on the Washington Nationals. And for that matter, no pitcher has more than 9.0 innings in official games.
As the starters play deeper into games, there will be more plate appearances and more innings going forward. Some of the offensive numbers are really really bad on those stat sheets. Should we be concerned by the poor stats and pleased with the good stats? Yes and no to both. There are cautionary tales on both. But some of the “process” we have seen has been bad and yes, that is concerning.
Washington Nationals vs. St. Louis Cardinals
Stadium: Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, Jupiter, Florida
1st Pitch: 1:05 PM EDT
TV: N/A
Radio: 106.7 The Fan and the MLB app
