The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

Photo by Lynn G. for TalkNats

The Nationals have put themselves in another hole of their own making, but some credit should be given to the Mets for stealing the first two games of this series. The Nats go for a salvage win in this series that they trail two games to none as the Nats have lost the last two games in their bullpen in consecutive one-run losses. In fact, the last five meetings between these two teams have resulted in five straight losses by the Nats who have held leads going into the 8th or 9th innings resulting in five blown saves. CitiField used to be a place where the Nationals have dominated the Mets but recently has become a house of horrors. Today’s Vegas line has the Mets as overwhelming favorites with Jacob deGrom on the mound versus Anibal Sanchez. Continue reading →

Photo courtesy of Kelly Collis for TalkNats

Yesterdays don’t count anymore, you just learn from them and move forward. Okay, yesterday’s W/L count in the standings, but you still must move forward because you cannot change the results. Carpe diem novum translates to: Seize the new day! Part of what happened yesterday defies logic, and that is baseball. We will see if manager Dave Martinez can once again turn his team around from a dark moment. These 2019 Washington Nationals have picked themselves up from the canvas after they were knocked down, and that is a sign of a great team. The standings still say the Washington Nationals have the top spot in the Wild Card race. That is the good news. The Nationals still control their own destiny. Win today.  Continue reading →

Photo by Lynn G for TalkNats

There are games on the schedule that become more significant based on the standings. This weekend’s games are being hyped as the most important series of the year for the Mets. For the Nationals, they just need to keep winning series, and all signs point to that the Nats will play another series without Max Scherzer who remains on the 10-day IL. He would be eligible to be activated if he was able to pitch. Fortunately, manager Dave Martinez has the other three pitchers in his “Big Four” lined up to pitch in this series. He has penciled in Stephen Strasburg vs. Marcus Stroman for tonight, Patrick Corbin vs. Noah Syndergaard on Saturday, and the Nationals used the open date on the calendar on Thursday to reseed the rotation to pitch Anibal Sanchez vs. Jacob deGrom in the finale on Sunday. It was Sanchez who out-pitched the Cy Young frontrunner, Hyun-Jin Ryu, of the Dodgers two weeks ago, and Martinez will ask Sanchez to do it again. Continue reading →

The Washington Nationals had a “Help Wanted” sign for starting pitchers seeking temp work in place of Jeremy Hellickson and Max Scherzer.  General Manager has filled those spots with Erick Fedde, Austin Voth, Kyle McGowin, and Joe Ross to audition. Voth injured his shoulder, and McGowin was not that good. Fedde now has more starts this season than Hellickson. It might surprise some to hear that Fedde now has ten starts and most of them have been good. For Joe Ross, today will only be his third start of the season, but he also had that forgettable appearance where he tandem started with Matt Grace who was the “opener”. Ross threw a gem five days ago in Arizona for a much needed win. What was interesting in that start in Arizona has to be the change to Ross’ arsenal in that game. Continue reading →

Photo by Lynn G. for TalkNats

There is just 50-games remaining in the regular season, and the Nats have to start a long winning streak to gain some ground in the Wild Card race. Easier said than done, but the results in the last two weeks will not get it done most likely. The team is 59-53 and going .500 the rest of the way is an 84 win season which will not get it done. The target must be closer to 89 wins which will require a 30-20 finish which means this team has to basically win every remaining series which is not realistic which is why you need some long winning streaks. Continue reading →