Photo by Alec Geis/TalkNats
The Washington Nationals have to look at what they did right in their first 4 games, and what they didn’t do right in their past 8 games to try to come up with solutions. There is no easy matchup this weekend against the 8-4 Milwaukee Brewers. The Nationals will send Jake Irvin to the mound with the hopes that he is more like his first start of the season.
This game is sort of a homecoming for Joey Wiemer who will face the Brewers. They were the team that he debuted for and played most of his big league games for. But the Brewers gave up on him and threw him into a trade in July of 2024 and until the Nats picked him up, Wiemer’s career was uncertain. With a first week of success, Wiemer’s second week was a huge droppoff and in his last five game of his eight game season, he is only batting .200 with a .494 OPS and no extra base hits.
One player who is stepping up on the offense is James Wood who is on a heater and is now a +0.3 WAR from a -.04. That’s a +0.7 turnaround in just a week.
Here is a chart of usage on manager Butera‘s bullpen:
The FanGraphs WAR chart is accumulating data. This will start to give us a clearer picture in six weeks when the sample sizes get larger. The OAA defense stat requires a minimum of 10 defensive plays. We will start adding more statistics as the sample sizes get larger.
Washington Nationals vs. Milwaukee Brewers
Stadium: American Family Field, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
1st Pitch: 7:40 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 183 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
