Photo by Marlene Koenig/TalkNats
The Washington Nationals blew another game they had in their grasp for a win. Now instead of going for a series win — the Nats are in salvage mode and have to face the Giants best pitcher, LHP Robbie Ray, a former draft pick of these Washington Nationals.
The Nats offense continues to score runs, but once again they showed that they make too many mistakes that have cost them wins. A lack of hustle, forgetting the number of outs, and not following your coaches signal to slide, a costly pick-off at third base, along with some mind-numbing at-bats sums of Saturday.
The Nats will go with PJ Poulin as an opener. They also optioned Paxton Schultz to Triple-A Rochester and have brought up starter Andrew Alvarez for length. As we mentioned, Schultz bore the brunt of the bullpen’s burden on Friday night and threw a career-high 3.0 innings in relief. We will see how Miles Mikolas factors into this game as this was his scheduled start day. The numbers show he has been ineffective after 2.0 innings of work.
With another short game yesterday from a starting pitcher, the bullpen continues to eat innings. Expect three lefty relievers to get the day-off based on yesterday’s pitch counts. 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.
San Francisco Giants vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 1:35 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 178 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
