by Andrew Lang
by Andrew Lang
Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats
After the Nationals dropped the first game of this series in what looked like a favorable matchup with Patrick Corbin going against Tyler Mahle, the Nats have to take advantage of old friend Tanner Roark who was traded in the off-season to the Reds for Tanner Rainey. The Nationals send Erick Fedde to the mound, and he will get to face the Reds lineup that will have a couple more lefties in there. Continue reading
Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats
The Nats got blown-out in this game by the final score of 9-3. Starting pitcher Patrick Corbin lasted 2 2/3 innings and gave up 8 runs of which 6 were earned runs. In the month of May, Patrick Corbin had been used like a workhorse throwing 547 pitches in the month before tonight, and that is 3 pitches short of averaging 110 pitches per game. One of the keys to Corbin’s success in Arizona is that he was not pushed hard in games. In fact, he never threw 100 pitches last year in April or May. Continue reading
Dave Martinez and his original coaching staff in 2018; (Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats)
The schedule for Dave Martinez’s managerial debut posted him in Cincinnati, Ohio to begin his managerial career in 2018. Maybe that was a positive for him because his Washington Nationals dominated and swept the Reds in a 3-game series to begin his career. By Martinez’s fourth career game his team was 4-0 with a +16 run differential. This season seems to be the opposite for Dave Martinez. It has been a struggle from the first game of the season.
Like the Nationals, the Reds roster looks different from last year’s. The Reds have added Derek Dietrich and Yasiel Puig. and others. The Puig acquisition was a salary dump by the Dodgers who also sent Matt Kemp and Alex Wood to the Reds. Wood has been on the IL and Kemp was DFA’d.
These two teams swapped “Tanners” in an off-season trade that sent Tanner Roark to the Reds and Tanner Rainey to the Nats. The Nats will get to face Roark tomorrow as he is scheduled to make the start. It is a very different Roark who is essentially pitching to his optimal analytics. He is generally pitching two times through the opposing team’s batting order (5.1 innings on average) and pulled before he breaks a sweat which won’t let him get too far into a pitch count above 98-pitches with few exceptions. While that formula has made Roark look better than last year, he is leaving much of the fate of the game to his bullpen.
The Reds send the right-handed Tyler Mahle to the mound tonight to face the Nats ace lefty Patrick Corbin who has been the Nats best pitcher if you go by Baseball Reference’s WAR.
Washington Nationals vs. Cincinnati Reds
Stadium: Great American Ballpark, Cincinnati, Ohio
1st Pitch: 7:10 pm EDT
TV: MASN2; MLB App out-of-market
Nats Radio: 106.7 The Fan and via the MLB app
Line-ups subject to change without notice:
Trevor Rosenthal watches and waits from the bullpen. (Photo for TalkNats by Lynn G)
An ode to James Carville who wrote “It’s the bullpen economy, stupid” as a political strategist, and he is often seen at Nationals Park as a fan of the game. The Ragin’ Cajun might agree that the Nationals problems have all been about the poor bullpen and the early injuries, and some poor roster construction. What advice would he have for general manager Mike Rizzo? Some sage advice would have been that you cannot win a campaign by betting on the wrong people. This all goes back to the roster construction in the off-season, and banking on expensive high-risk high-reward players. In particular, the gamble on Trevor Rosenthal is the type of move that if it goes wrong it has a cascading effect — and it did. Continue reading
Some things were the same, some things were different at this year’s ziMS Foundation gala held two weeks ago at Nationals Park. This is the first year that they didn’t distribute those little bracelets, and I noticed that there wasn’t the big decorative cake centerpiece that they usually have. I think they might have cut back on the food varieties as well, although what they had was delicious and plenty of it. Options included the “vegetable meat” sliders, which I have to say I liked pretty well.
This event which has been going on for 13-years now is a charitable endeavor by Ryan Zimmerman‘s foundation to benefit Multiple Sclerosis research and care. The charity is near and dear to Ryan and his family as his mother, Cheryl, was diagnosed in 1995 with the disease.
The Nationals had a 14-0 lead in Atlanta in the 6th inning when Anibal Sanchez‘s perfect game was spoiled. All Nats’ position players had at least one-hit by the 4th inning as the Nats offense knocked out the Braves’ starter Kevin Gausman with no outs in the 2nd inning. The Nationals swept their first series of the season with this win in this 2-game series against the rival Braves.
Continue reading
Photo by Lynn G. for TalkNats
The Nationals got what they needed tonight from their ace, Stephen Strasburg, and their closer, Sean Doolittle, and 5-runs of support for a 5-4 win in Atlanta. Strasburg was on point all night and was victimized in one inning by two bloop hits on his way to a 7.0 inning 2-run 11-strikeout gem. Howie Kendrick and Trea Turner paced the offense with 3 hits apiece, and Turner had a key 8th inning web gem turned on Freddie Freeman. The difference in the game was Howie’s 7th inning solo home run. Continue reading
Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats
The schedulers at MLB cobbled together some early season matchups that never included the Nationals and Braves playing each other once in the first third of the season. Now these teams will face each other for the first time this season and only for two games in a mini-series which has two southern-California kids on the mound tonight. It is no surprise that Stephen Strasburg has been pitching well, but to see the left-handed Max Fried near the top of the ERA charts and Atlanta’s best pitcher is surprising. Fried was High School teammates with Lucas Giolito and both players are having breakout seasons. Fried has a 7-2 record and is tied for the most wins in the NL. The southpaw was the 7th overall pick in the 2012 draft by the Padres who subsequently traded Fried in a six-player deal for Justin Upton. Continue reading
"Opening Day should be a National holiday"
We recently upgraded our comment system to improve reliability, performance, and long-term control, and we’re currently running both systems during the transition. This shift moves us away from an external service to a system we run and control directly—meaning we own the content and can continue improving it over time. We’ve also reduced the comment refresh delay from about 30 seconds to 10 seconds, making it much closer to real-time.
We understand there have been frustrations and increased feedback, and we’re actively working to improve things. What we ask is simple: use the system and give it a fair shot. If you run into issues, please submit them through the support form so we can track and fix them properly. Repeated complaints without details don’t help us solve problems—we appreciate your patience as we continue refining the experience.
If you’d like a full side-by-side comparison of the platforms and the reasons behind this decision, please refer to the chart below. This change is being made with the long-term benefit of the entire community in mind.