Photo by Andrew Lang/TalkNats
The Washington Nationals started the season at 1.000 and went down to .500 and up to .667 and further up to .750. The last time the team saw .500 was on April 1. Fitting, right? The team is 0-6 trying to get back to .500 since that point — but there’s a reason for that. Almost every time they are in position to win to get back to .500, they are facing some really good starting pitchers like Tyler Glasnow, Paul Skenes, Logan Webb, Janson Junk, and Chase Burns.
Today’s starting pitcher the Nats will face is Chris Bassitt. The Nats have their Opening Day starter, Cade Cavalli, on the mound today. Can Cavalli replicate what Zack Littell did last night? Littell threw 5.0 innings of scoreless baseball on Friday night for the win. In his past three games, Littell has only given up 3-earnies with a 0.950 WHIP, and a .186 opposing batting average (8-for-43).
The Nats got length out of Littell and Andrew Alvarez, and nearly went the whole way using just those two, until Alvarez ran into trouble in the 9th inning and manager Blake Butera had to use both Gus Varland and Richard Lovelady to seal the victory. Here is a quick look at the use and usage in 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 even larger. The OAA defense stat is now giving us a picture of what the Nats have — and don’t have.
Baltimore Orioles vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 4:05 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/X, tune to Channel 179 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
