The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

The Washington Nationals arrived in San Diego last night with manager Dave Martinez plastered all over the news due to his animated ejection from yesterday’s game. It is pent-up frustration of hundreds of bad calls this season that has cost his team in lopsided umpiring favoring the opposing team. Yesterday, there were two 3-2 counts with called strike threes, and a low mid-calf pitch for a strike three that got Davey going. He was clearly right. Just awful calls. Per Ump Scorecard, it was a 1.64 runs advantage to the other team, and the fifth largest run disadvantage in all of MLB this year. But the Nats did themselves no favors with some poor fielding plays that cost them five runs (four unearned).

The Washington Nationals played one of their most complete games in all phases of baseball yesterday with the starting pitching and bullpen completing the team’s second combined shutout of the season yesterday. The defense and positioning was excellent. The offense was good and probably a tad unlucky.

You would have to give Trevor Williams and CJ Abrams the top stars in that game. Both came through in a game where the conditions were rough. It rained for most of the game, and they came through for a big win. Williams went 6.0 scoreless and Abrams was 3-3 with a oppo homer and excellent defense at shortstop.

We are officially in summer. It is also the longest amount of daylight of the year. The Boys of Summer are set to take the field. The Washington Nationals had two roster moves today, and both Victor Robles (back pain) and Carl Edwards Jr. (shoulder inflammation) go to the IL, with CF Derek Hill and LHP Joe La Sorsa taking their spots on the roster.

The Washington Nationals are digging a deeper hole for themselves with a 9-21 record in the past 30-games. Now the team is exactly on a 62-100 pace, and that is not acceptable. Losing another winnable game yesterday is becoming more of the rule and not the exception.

Walking batters that score is becoming all too commonplace as we saw with a bullpen pitcher again yesterday. Those two runs turned out to be the deficit in the loss. The defense is not making big plays, and that also was a reason for the loss. But the bats plated six runs yesterday. Starter Josiah Gray has been struggling for the last month, partially by his own mistakes but also by his defense.

The Washington Nationals are spiraling down with a 9-20 record in the past 29-games, and it all started last month at the hands of the Marlins, and continued through their second beatdown this past weekend as the Fish just took advantage of any Nats mistake and capitalized. All together, the Nats have been swept in both series by Miami to an 0-6 record. Some of it is luck — or in this case some back luck, and some of it is that the Nats are not playing well enough.

Tonight, the teams celebrate the holiday, Juneteenth, and will have some pregame on-the-field celebrations for the holiday. There is also a special ticket that can be purchased for the game that includes a themed t-shirt and a $5 of every ticket sold will be donated to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

First off, happy Father’s Day to all who celebrate. The teams will have baby blue themed caps for the day, and some other tributes on cleats, gloves, and arm sleeves. For the ceremonial first pitch, the Nats will have their children throwing out pitches to their dads.

The Washington Nationals lost their 16th game of the season out of their bullpen. They also have 16 blown saves. The bullpen recently had two DFAs with Erasmo Ramirez and Andres Machado, but it was Chad Kuhl and Thaddeus Ward who turned a tie game into a 5-2 loss, and the fifth straight loss this season against the Marlins.

The Washington Nationals made three comebacks in last night’s game to tie the score to only lose it on a bizarre play to put the 15th loss on the Nats bullpen. The offense scored five runs to back starter Trevor Williams, but in the end, he couldn’t do his job to control the runs and gave up five against a Marlins offense that isn’t good past their superstar Luis Arraez who is batting .390 on the season but just came off of an 0-15 slide to post a 5-5 game with three key RBIs include a 2-run bomb against Williams.

In all, the Nats have three one-run losses in four games this season with the Marlins, and the other game ended in a two-run loss against the Fish. The time is now how to figure out how to beat the team from Miami.