Photo by Jake Stephens/TalkNats
The Washington Nationals headed to Miami on a happy flight in the early evening yesterday. With the exception of a couple of players, every Nats player boosted their stats on Wednesday and Thursday. With back-to-back wins to take that series against the Twins, the Nats hopefully have some positive momentum going into this weekend series in Miami.
Mid-game on Sunday, we officially will have reached the quarter-pole in the season. Time flies. That’s the point where we can make more assessments. Of course some would say that even July 1 stats have almost been meaningless the past two seasons given the second-half demise of the team’s All-Stars. Yes, Nats fans are nervous. They want to believe in this team, but they also don’t want to be disappointed. That’s part of the problem with trying to project numbers as nothing is better than full-year stats.
The Nats send to the mound their best pitcher, lefty Foster Griffin, and the Marlins have an MLB debut tonight of lefty Robby Snelling who was ranked No. 32 in MLB Pipeline. The Nats will load their lineup with more right-handed bats. Against lefty starters this season, the Nats are 8-4.
On the health of Luis Garcia Jr., he won’t start again today. That is five days-off for Garcia unless he enters the game later. The question is, why wasn’t he put on the 10-day IL that could have been backdated? He is considered day-to-day with a sore wrist.
The bullpen had to use four relievers yesterday, they will need to rest Orlando Ribalta who has taken on a very heavy load. Here is a quick look at the use and usage in manager Blake Butera‘s bullpen:
The FanGraphs WAR chart is accumulating data. This will start to give us a clearer picture in a few more weeks when the sample sizes get larger. The OAA defense stat is now giving us a picture of what the Nats have — and don’t have. We will start adding more statistics as the sample sizes get larger.
Washington Nationals vs. Miami Marlins
Stadium: loanDepot park, Miami, Florida
1st Pitch: 7:10 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 176 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
