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When the Nationals ownership group greenlighted $140 million in the off-season to sign the top free agent pitcher, Patrick Corbin‘s deal was finalized by general manager Mike Rizzo in what was a surprise to many who were convinced he was heading to the Yankees or Phillies who vowed to spend “stupid money”.  For Corbin, he would start the Nats portion of his career looking like the ace the Nats paid the big bucks for. On Corbin’s 11th start for his new team, he would throw a complete game shutout to lower his ERA to 2.85 — but that is also where the controversy starts. Was it necessary to have pushed Corbin to another high pitch count? In his first 5-games in May, he threw 547 pitches in that span including counts of 107, 108, 116, and 118 pitches with an average of 109.4 pitches per start. The problem is Corbin’s previous 3-starts he is 0-3 with an 11.37 ERA and 12 2/3 innings completed. Not only has Corbin pitched poorly, but he has also stressed his bullpen to cover more innings than he pitched. Continue reading →

Baseball as we saw in the movie “Field of Dreams” brings many fathers together with their children, sons and daughters. Today, we celebrate fathers and father figures in our lives. For the Nationals, Anibal Sanchez will take the mound on this Father’s Day wearing that “baby blue” cap to celebrate a day that has a meaning for him beyond baseball. Sure, Sanchez has a young daughter Anabella with wife Ana and their son Anibal Jr., but he also mourns the loss and memorializes his baby son who died in 2007.  Alan Sanchez was bit by a mosquito in his native Venezuela and contracted dengue fever and passed away.  Continue reading →

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

Baseball proves so often that great pitching beats a hot hitting team, and Max Scherzer did that last night and Stephen Strasburg hopes to follow Scherzer’s lead in today’s game. Stras is having a solid season, and the team has him at a .700 win percentage that the fireballer is hoping to improve on today. Arizona had a recent 7-2 record until they ran into Scherzer last night. The Nationals have also been on their own hot streak recently. This four-game series is tied up at one game each, but the Diamondbacks are struggling at the back of their rotation as most expected as the D’Backs went into the off-season in rebuild mode as they lost their ace, Patrick Corbin, to free agency as he signed with the Nats and A.J. Pollock also moved on in free agency. In addition, their General Manager, Mike Hazen, traded away Paul Goldschmidt who was their best position player, and they netted back Carson Kelly in that swap. Kelly showed last night that he is a keeper.  Continue reading →

Yesterday, the Nationals just lost another opening game to a series where their record is 7-16 (.304 winning percentage) in those first games of new series. That is much improved from where it was a month ago. But today a Twitter follower @TheNatsFanatic commented that the Nationals are 1-9 after days-off and that is a .100 winning percentage in a fairly large sample size. We “fact checked” that stat and can unfortunately certify it as accurate.  That begs the question, why? What is happening on days-off? The only win of the season after a day-off was not a well-played game by the Nationals when Stephen Strasburg surrendered 5-runs in 5-innings against the White Sox, but Reynaldo Lopez gave up 6-runs, and the Nationals won. Why are the Nationals seemingly flat like yesterday after days-off when you would think just the opposite? These are the “case study” types of anomalies that the analytics department needs to drill down and see if they can pick up on something.  Continue reading →

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

One of the bright spots for the Nationals has certainly been Erick Fedde who joined the Nationals rotation on May 21st and has pitched well at Nationals Park with a 0.00 ERA. He will face the Diamondbacks today to start a four-game series. This is a Diamondbacks team that looks much different without A.J. Pollock and Paul Goldschmidt, but they have shown that they can play good baseball without them. The Diamondbacks have received a good year from the 35-year-old righty Zack Greinke who starts for them tonight.  Continue reading →