by Andrew Lang
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Andrew Lang
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Stan4Nats
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
Click here for links to previous 18-gamers.
When last we left the Nats, they had just escaped the first 18 games of the season with a 9-9 record by winning the first two games of a series against the then-division leading Mets at Citi Field. 9-9 seemed like a better record than they deserved after 2-8 stretch in the middle of that set, including a five game losing streak. But they trailed the Mets by only four games.
Tony Gwynn in the Padres Monument Park
The Washington Nationals look to wrap-up this 3-game series with Gio Gonzalez on the mound in San Diego before the team flies to Phoenix, Arizona for a 4-game series against the top team in the National League. Nationals manager Dave Martinez will take advantage of rookie lefty Joey Lucchesi pitching to go righty dominant with the entire batting order to include his switch-hitters because of the splits. Righties have an OPS of .728 against Lucchesi versus lefties at just .523. Lucchesi started hot out of the gates for the Padres but he got knocked around by the Dodgers 5 days ago while laboring through 5 innings averaging 20 pitches per inning. Continue reading
On the morning of April 9th, NatsTown was not a happy place as the Nationals were mired in a 5-game losing streak. There were fans who were ready to burn the town down. They had manager Dave Martinez pegged as a disaster. They were dissing Trea Turner as a batter who couldn’t hit. They were calling Brandon Kintzler a mistake of a signing. They were wrong about all three.
Ultimately the fans were right about A.J. Cole and Miguel Montero. Natstown did not even know the real severity of Adam Eaton‘s ankle that he injured days before -or- that 4 days forward from April 9th that Anthony Rendon would fracture his toe and eventually join Eaton and Daniel Murphy on the disabled list.
While the jury is still out 30-days later on Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Taylor, they are still playing every day (when healthy) and at the time along with Montero were all negative WAR players on that day. Zimmerman is still negative WAR and Taylor’s WAR (+0.2) has been bolstered by excellent defense.
The sun was shining early on the Nationals and Jeremy Hellickson as he shut the Padres down for 6 innings with no Padres reaching base. Travis Jankowski broke up the perfect game in the 7th inning, and the Nats cruised the rest of the way for a 4-to-0 shutout. Matt Adams delivered the clutch RBI double to open up the scoring and some add-on runs from his friends made it a nice efficient evening. Add to that a clutch ROOGY out for Ryan Madson and the Nats cruise to their 9th win in 10 games and move ahead of the NY Mets in the standings with this win. Continue reading
Since manager Dave Martinez placed Bryce Harper into the lead-off spot and moved Matt Adams to the #3, the Nationals have not faced a lefty starter and that all changed today with Clayton Richard on the mound for the San Diego Padres and righties hit him at a .961 OPS and lefties even have a .286 batting average against him this year. That could change today’s line-up or maybe not. Continue reading
When we started our interview with Potomac Nationals manager Tripp Keister, we first talked about the transitions he has seen from top prospect Victor Robles who Keister managed last year to inheriting the Nationals #2 and #3 prospects this year in Juan Soto and Carter Kieboom. Keister made it clear that he does not play favorites among the 25-players on his High-A roster. Continue reading
Photo by John Caulfield for TalkNats
This game started hot when Trea Turner in the 2-hole crushed a home run over the centerfield wall for the early lead, but the Padres tied it up in the 4th inning 1-to-1. Then the Nats blew the game open with 5 RBIs by Matt Adams powered by two home runs and Anthony Rendon added two doubles, and Trea Turner did it all tonight scoring 3 runs. Strasburg went a full 7 innings throwing 109 pitches giving up 3 runs. The Nats bullpen was shaky which made the final score 8-to-5 pushing the Nats to 2 games above .500 and 1 1/2 games within first place. Continue reading
The Washington Nationals are back on the west coast in SoCal for a 3-game against the San Diego Padres. After an uplifting walk-off win yesterday, the Nationals put themselves in a good position in the NL East to build-on their record. Tonight the Nats send Stephen Strasburg to the mound for the start. It is no secret that Stras is from San Diego and loves pitching in Petco Park. This will be Stephen’s fourth pro start in Petco, and he has a lifetime ERA of 2.84 in this stadium. Continue reading
Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
When Spring Training started, we all envisioned Bryce Harper as the clear favorite to lead the Washington Nationals in positional WAR. With Harper’s defense slacking and dragging down his metrics — Trea Turner this morning has grabbed the lead on Fangraph’s WAR ratings in almost a statistical tie with Harper — but that is not the shocker — it is the #3 and #4 positional WAR leaders for this team. The names attached to those two spots are players who started the season as bench depth and they are Wilmer Difo and Matt Adams. Continue reading
Honorary Sky Chiefs: Severino, Bautista, Difo, Stevenson (not pictured)
The Sky Chiefs won this game in the 9th inning for the first Nationals walk-off of 2018. Matt Wieters started the 9th inning with an infield hit — yes, you read that correctly. Wieters hustled down the line at his top speed and ignited his team. Instead of pinch-running with Pedro Severino, manager Dave Martinez went with speedster Rafael Bautista right away instead of waiting to see what unfolded with the next at-bat as many managers do with a short bench.
Phillies closer Hector Neris tried to pick-off Bautista and threw an errant throw and Bautista sprinted with no hesitation to 3rd base setting up the tying run. Howie Kendrick was then hit-by-pitch. Michael Taylor walked the bases loaded after showing bunt three times which seemed to unnerve Neris. Then the real fun began and the managerial wheels started to really move. Continue reading
