The Washington Nationals had their best bullpen showing in weeks last night as the relievers put together 4⅔ scoreless innings with the win going to Riley Cornelio, his first, a hold for Matt Krook, and the save for Tom Cosgrove. Not the three you would expect. Cornelio grew up near Denver, and had a large cheering section in attendance last night.
After tonight’s game, there are just 60-games remaining in the season. The trade deadline usually starts the sprint to the finish. There are just 11-games until the trade deadline. The Nats really need a long winning streak to show the front office that they deserve to be buyers.
The Nationals will have lefty Carson Palmquist as the starter tonight with righty Miles Mikolas following him. Manager Blake Butera will go with a more-balanced lineup tonight and Dylan Crews will not be in the starting lineup.
A roster move today as they called-up right-handed pitcher Eddy Yean from Triple-A Rochester and DFA’d Justin Lawrence. That puts the 40-man roster at 39-players. We will see if there is another acquisition or promotion coming in the next few days.
❝[The offense ] is just going about their business the same way and not trying to do anything differently [because it’s in a hitter’s park]. I think sometimes when you worry about that a little bit, it can change your approach — especially offensively — if you’re trying to get the ball in the air maybe a little bit more because you know that the ball is flying better [here]. So we’re just trying to make sure these guys stay true to their plans.❞
On offense, the Nats have the 1st in MLB for the most runs scored this season at 552 runs, and that is an impressive 5.46 runs per game. With the Nats pitching giving up 4.80 earned runs per game, the difference is really those pesky unearned runs due to the errors. Overall, the Nats have a +19 run differential on the season.
The FanGraphs WAR chart is now large in its sample size. You can certainly start to extrapolate the numbers for the full-season. The OAA defense stat is now giving us a picture of what the Nats have — and don’t have.
Washington Nationals vs. Colorado Rockies
Stadium: Coors Field, Denver, Colorado 1st Pitch: 8:40 PM EDT TV: Nationals.TV Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 186 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
