The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

Photo by Marlene Koenig

As the curtain comes down on the Washington Nationals for this 2021 season, they will be joined by 19 other teams who will have an early exit to the off-season. The only October baseball those teams will see is their final regular season game today. The Phillies, Mets, and Marlins are all headed to the same place as the Nats.

With some teams, heads will roll. Many feel that the Mets and Phillies will make moves to their coaching staffs, and possibly their front offices too. The Nats might not fire any coaches, and manager Dave Martinez  said yesterday, that pitching coach Jim Hickey, will return which is what we reported earlier in the week. It was out of the norm to hear that official proclamation so soon, especially given that the Nats pitching will rank in the bottom-third of baseball — but surprisingly they are seventh from the bottom headed into this game at a 4.79 ERA. Continue reading →

Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

The Washington Nationals have been really bad at the role of spoiler this year. They lost their final eight games against the Phillies, and the team from Philadelphia could not even accept those gift to make the postseason. The Nats have been handing out gifts to many of the potential playoff teams, and the Red Sox desperately have to sweep this weekend series.

The Sox took the first game last night, and the only runs they scored came off of starter Josh Rogers in the sixth inning as he was laboring. What if manager Dave Martinez went to the bullpen at first sign of trouble? Instead Rogers’ 5 1/3 innings of shutout baseball turned into 6.0 full innings and 4 earned runs surrendered. Red Sox manager Alex Cora pulled his starter with a shutout at 5.0 innings. Cora went to his bullpen for the final 4.0 innings of the game and they gave up two runs. There is no exact winning formula as we know, but analytics on most pitchers is clear.  Continue reading →

Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

The last time the Red Sox played the Washington Nationals in the D.C. area in front of fans was at the Naval Academy. That was supposed to be an annual pre-season game for the Nationals in their relationship with the Navy — but Peter Angelos, the owner of the Orioles, put a kibosh on that claiming the Naval Academy in Annapolis was in his geographical territory, and that ended that. A philanthropic gesture by the Nats to benefit the Navy is now a distant memory. The Red Sox are very popular in the D.C. area given all of the transplants in the area so any meeting between these two teams is a huge draw.  Continue reading →

Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

If you had to choose the best starter (minimum 7 starts) for the Washington Nationals since the trade deadline, your ace is Paolo Espino. His ERA for the season is at 4.01 prior to today’s start that will also mark his final start of the 2021 season. The injured Joe Ross had a 4.17 ERA before he was injured, and his status for 2022 is very much up in the air. Additionally, there is the lefty, Josh Rogers, who will make his sixth and final start of the 2021 season this weekend. Rogers ERA is at 2.73, and he will be competing in Spring Training for one of the spots in the rotation.  Continue reading →

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

A happy birthday to the greatest Washington Nationals’ player of all-time. Employee #11 will be the last player to don the #11 jersey in Washington baseball history as they will retire his number officially at some point — but we have no idea if the Face of the Franchise is ready to hang it up soon.  Ryan Zimmerman is 16 homer runs from 300 in his career, and two walk-off home runs from the MLB record to tie Jim Thome. The original first draft pick of the Nats’ franchise will not reveal his intentions for the 2022 season until the weather is real cold outside his D.C. area home. So enjoy this start tonight, and hopefully he gets at least one more start this weekend J.I.C.  Continue reading →

Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

There are only six games left to close the Washington Nationals season. That is a fact, however there are six games remaining for players to show what they have. While Juan Soto has nothing to prove, he is competing for a batting crown, Silver Slugger, Gold Glove, and the MVP. Just being able to watch Juan Soto on a daily basis is a thrill, and especially for youngsters who could be telling stories 50 years from now that they saw Soto play. Continue reading →

Photo by MarkFD for TalkNats

The last two nights just seemed so familiar with this Washington Nationals’ team lately. Watching the 35th blown save of the season not only set a record in the Majors since “save” records were first kept in 1969, but it just shows how good this team would have been if they had a competent bullpen.

The Reds pulled their starter at the 2 2/3 innings point of the game because it was a “must win” for them while Nats’ manager Dave Martinez allowed Erick Fedde to give up two runs in the fifth inning which has been the blowup inning for Fedde all year. We wrote in the pre-game that he had a 5th inning ERA of 7.91 runs, and of course that is over 8.00 runs now. Yesterday with the stats we have, it should have been no surprise, but the Nats bullpen is so bad, you just trade one disaster for another.

The meltdown by Fedde was as expected as the almost certainty that the Nats bullpen would blow it. That bullpen needing to get the job done for the final four innings was going to be like dodging bullets in a shootout and you knew it would end ugly. Two walk-offs in a row for the Reds. Continue reading →