Photo by Sol Tucker/TalkNats
The Washington Nationals are back at it tonight in Pittsburgh. Let’s see if Miles Mikolas can pitch a game and keep his team competitive for this one. So far, he hasn’t been able to do that in his first three appearances. The Nats officially called-up Mitchell Parker who could go long for the Nats if needed. This could be a tandem starter situation like Don Henderson has discussed. The Nats will use PJ Poulin as an opener and go to Mikolas and then possibly to Parker.
With some creativity to help Mikolas, we will see if this works. Kudos to the Nats brass for trying something to give the Nationals an advantage.
The Nats burned Paxton Schultz yesterday, and with no days off for the team for over a week, they will need to keep the bullpen fresh. They probably want to not pitch Brad Lord today also. Everyone else should be available. Here is a chart of usage on manager Blake 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. Pittsburgh Pirates
Stadium: PNC Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1st Pitch: 6:40 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 179 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
