The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

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 →

Where else would you want baseball played on Memorial Day? In the capital of the free world of course in Washington D.C., and in Nationals Park. While this day has meaning far beyond baseball, it is good to see the effort the Nationals put in at every home game for honoring those who serve. Please take a moment today to remember what today means to our collective freedom.  There will be a moment of silence at 3 p.m. in MLB parks today, and all players, coaches and umps will wear a patch of a red poppy with the words “LEST NOT FORGET.”  Continue reading →

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

This afternoon’s starters at Nationals Park are Erick Fedde and Caleb Smith who both exceeded their rookie limits last year, and in the equivalent of their sophomore seasons this year, it is Smith who has emerged from seemingly nowhere as the best lefty in the National League ahead of even Patrick Corbin. In fact, the southpaw’s style is much like Corbin’s with the swing and miss stuff on the slider and changeup, and he has the fastball to keep you off-balance having you stay back enough for his off-speed. Continue reading →

After last night’s win, manager Dave Martinez acknowledged that the team has to play better. For Martinez, he was clearly referring to the four errors committed by his defense and other recent mistakes made in baserunning and plays that were not made. You take an ugly win, and hopefully learn from it. A team loses plenty of games where they played well so it does even out.  Continue reading →

Enjoy them while they are still with the Nationals

With the Marlins coming to D.C., they are enjoying a six game winning streak while the Nationals are mired in an excruciating five game losing streak. These teams square off this weekend and into Memorial Day for a four-game series.

There is a myriad of calls for manager Dave Martinez to be fired, and this is the noise playing in the background and causing added stress for the coaching staff and players. Because these two NL East teams are only separated by 1 ½ games in the standings, it is entirely within the realm of possibilities that the Nationals could be in last place in the NL East tomorrow evening if their losing streak goes to seven games. This Nationals team has not won in so long that they were actually only 7-games below .500 when this losing streak started, and there was optimism after Strasburg’s win over the Cubs last Saturday. They have been close to winning every game of those five games they lost as the Nats were within 1-run in the 8th inning in each of those games which included three blown saves. Continue reading →