Photo by Jake Stephens/TalkNats
The Washington Nationals dropped the first game in their 4-game series with the Braves, and blew two leads in the process. As we know, errors will happen — but when you’re batting .176 with a .464 and you aren’t a pitcher — you better not be making sloppy errors. That was the case for Nasim Nunez, and it came a half-inning after the Nationals.TV crew was propping up Nunez’s paltry OPS and bragging on his defense — then the error that changed the lead happened. Yes, Nunez is a very good defensive second baseman, but he isn’t at the top of the position. Maybe not even Top-3.
For tonight’s game, Foster Griffin starts for the Nationals, and former Nats’ farmhand, Reynaldo Lopez, starts for the Braves.
The Nats offense continues to score runs, but on too many nights, they haven’t scored enough. Sunday’s game was so nice because the team scored three runs, and the pitching threw a shutout.
Yesterday, the team brought up Julian Fernandez as an extra bullpen arm, and he struggled in the 9th inning after some less than perfect defense. Today, no roster moves. 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.
Atlanta Braves vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 6:45 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 180 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
