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Winner’s Circle; Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

The Nats are 6-4 since April 12th when they got all of their position players back from the COVID IL list. That’s the second best record in the NL East behind the Marlins who were 7-3 in that span. There is a little more optimism today surrounding the Nats even after Juan Soto went on the 10-day IL two days ago with shoulder inflammation. But optimism only seems to last when the going is good, and the team won both of those games without their 22 year old star outfielder. Continue reading →

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The Washington Nationals got their much needed great outing from Patrick Corbin last night and that is good news. Unfortunately, Joe Ross had a 10-run meltdown the night before after he started the season as the Nats best pitcher. Health and consistency is the new problem while exposing other issues within the pitcher’s repertoires.

What do we mean by exposing issues within the pitcher’s repertoires? Both Corbin and Ross have all but abandoned the changeups they worked on in the offseason. Both are back to essentially throwing fastballs and sliders.

“You’ve just go back to your strengths,” Corbin said. “And everyone knows that’s my slider, and fastball command. I just really wanted to simplify things, get back to it.”

With enough movement and hitting their locations, both have shown in the past that it is enough to throw zeros up on the board, but as we saw with Ross on Monday night, he got lit up like a Christmas tree when his sinker wasn’t sinking with the desired movement. Corbin missed location on two 4-seam fastballs last night that leaked over the center of the plate and both were fouled off indicating that he either got lucky or he had enough movement on the pitches to get away with it. Ross was not as fortunate.

You will notice on this chart from last night that Corbin was still yanking his 4-seam fastballs too far, but he was fortunate in getting calls from the homeplate ump on four of those on/near the black. Corbin also increased his use of the 2-seam fastball (sinker) and only threw four changeups in the game.

Even after’s Corbin’s six shutout innings last night, the team has an awful starter’s ERA of 5.72. Stephen Strasburg is on the 10-day IL with right shoulder inflammation, and Jon Lester still hasn’t pitched in a game for the Nats as he continues to rehab at the Alt Training Site. But you have to feel that Corbin’s excellent performance yesterday was much needed to clear him as healthy.  Continue reading →

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The Washington Nationals have a problem. It is called the starting pitching which has a starter’s ERA of 5.23. The team moved Stephen Strasburg to the 10-day IL yesterday with right shoulder inflammation. While losing Strasburg for a lengthy period of time is a problem, the bigger problem is the unknown of what the team will get from Strasburg and Patrick Corbin this year. Corbin has a 21.32 ERA and is said to be healthy. The Nats were 2-9 in Corbin starts last year and have lost both of his games this year.

This team was built on starting pitching, and last year turned in the highest starter’s ERA (5.38) in Washington Nationals history. Think about that in historical terms to the days in 2008 when the starter’s salaries combined were less than half what the Nats are paying Strasburg this year. They say, “you get what you paid for” and we are seeing that in baseball terms that is not always true.

Baseball Reference chart as of 4-18-2021

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