Game #155 Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom for the Mets finale

Posted on September 24, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

On paper, this looks like a great match-up for the 19th and final game of the season between the Nationals and the Mets. The Nationals have won 7 of the 9 games so far in CitiField this season. Dusty Baker said he plans on putting in some of his youngsters into the line-up in this day-game after a night-game which will be in stark contrast to last night’s game where Dusty had his best available line-up for the game.

Last night, Dusty Baker pulled Stephen Strasburg with just 83 pitches at the 5-inning mark saying this was to get Stras ready for the post-season. When asked after the game if Dusty would go easy on Max Scherzer today, Dusty wouldn’t commit to that.

Adam Lind has substituted nicely for Ryan Zimmerman two games in a row. We learned from Dusty Baker that Zim is dealing with some general soreness on a slide he made into home on Thursday in Atlanta. Lind has homered in back-to-back games, and now has 57 RBIs in just 258 at-bats which is a Nats best RBI rate of 4.53 AB/RBI.  Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, InGame | Leave a comment

Sean Doolittle goes 20/20; Murphy beats the Mets again!

Posted on September 23, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Washington Nationals got back to their winning ways, and while it wasn’t pretty — it still counted as the Nationals 93rd win of the season. The Nationals bullpen threw another shutout covering the 6th through the 10th inning.

Stephen Strasburg was abused by seeing eye singles which led to 3 earned runs on his night. Luckily the Nats scored 3 runs for Strasburg to get him off the hook. The Nats could have won the game for him but they were not good in RISP opportunities tonight going a poor 1-for-9. Michael Taylor left 5 men-on-base and Stevenson left 7. Taylor had chances twice to score runs with a productive out and he struck out twice.

The Nationals scored all 4 of their runs off of home runs coming from a 2-run smash from Adam Lind, and solo shots from Matt Wieters and Daniel Murphy. With Murphy’s game-winning home run, it was his 9th against the Mets in his two seasons with the Nationals, and he also joined the 90+ RBI club with Anthony Rendon and Ryan Zimmerman.

Sean Doolittle earned his 20th Nats save in 20 opportunities. Sammy Solis, Ryan Madson, Brandon Kintzler, and Matt Albers all threw shutouts in their innings. The Nats bullpen combined for 7 strikeouts in the game.  Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Recap | Leave a comment

Game #154 Strasburg vs Syndergaard/Harvey tandem

Posted on September 23, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

In 2015, names like Stephen Strasburg, Noah Syndergaard, and Matt Harvey were some of the marquee names in the game of baseball. Today, Stephen Strasburg is still an All-Star and Syndergaard and Harvey have been oft-injured shadows of their 2015 superstar statuses.

The last time the Mets had Noah Syndergaard on the mound was on April 30th when Syndergaard left the game injured with a partial lat  tear amidst controversy because there was no MRI performed previously. After the Nationals went on a 23-to-5 offensive demolition of the Mets in that April 3oth game, a young Mets fan added insult to injury when he called Syndergaarad a “Barbie Doll” in this video that he posted after the disaster.

Tonight’s plan is for Syndergaard to start the game and pitch just one inning with Matt Harvey following him in the game. Harvey gave up 7 runs in 4 innings in his last start against the Marlins. It is possible that the “Barbie Doll kid” posts another angry video.

Stephen Strasburg has been one of the best pitchers in baseball this month and had been on a scoreless innings streak that was snapped when Michael Taylor couldn’t squeeze a flyball in a game on Sunday against the Dodgers.  Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, InGame | Leave a comment

Bryce Harper Pizza Reviewer; Hair Flipper; Barstool Sports 5 Guy

Posted on September 23, 2017 by Marcus T

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

Bryce Harper is so talented that he is also a food critic in addition to maintaining a food review site with his wife, Kayla, on Instagram called Harp.Eats. Yesterday, Harper did a food review for Barstool Sports on a New York style margarita pizza with fresh mozarella, tomatoes, and basil. Harper compared the Nick’s pizza to Costco frozen. How does Bryce Harper know about Costco?

Harper has been a fan of Barstool Sports for years and last year when he and his brother Bryan video’d themselves (here) doing a Barstool Sports staple “Saturday’s Are For The Boys” shoutout which led to controversy when Noah Syndergaard called him a “do-che”.

Yesterday, Bryce had an afternoon planned with BP at CitiField, shagging flies, some running, and a pizza review.

https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/911304123177246720

Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post writes,“One player who did paint Friday was Bryce Harper, who ran the bases, shagged flyballs and hit on the field with his teammates during batting practice. Harper put on the most spectacular batting practice show of any of his teammates, hitting more than one ball halfway up the second deck in right field. Harper is scheduled for a more extended on-field hitting session — a simulated game, really — Saturday. Baker said the Nationals will determine his next step then.”

Harper’s next step could be to eat more pizza and hit more bombs today and possibly face some live pitching. Onlookers said Bryce hit 2 bombs over the CitiField HR apple and one over the Shea Bridge yesterday. What can he do for an encore?

Posted in Harper | Leave a comment

Nats blow a 5 run lead; EJax gives up 6 runs; Lind/Robles with the Offense

Posted on September 22, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Nationals had a laugher going in this one with a 6-to-1 lead then Edwin Jackson in the 5th inning unraveled and continued his spiral downward.  By the times Dusty Baker pulled Jackson, he had lost that 5-run cushion and was pulled in a 6-to-6 game. Ollie Perez had already been warm in the bullpen and he quickly finished off the 5th inning.

The Nationals had additional opportunities to score as they had bases loaded an no outs in the 2nd inning and could not score. The highlights of the game were an Adam Lind 3-run home run and a 2-run triple from Victor Robles.

The loss in the game went to Joe Blanton who gave up a run which was the final scoring in the game to finish at 7-to-6. An unfortunate point in the game was when Shawn Kelley exited mid-batter with an apparent arm injury. Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Recap | Leave a comment

Game #153 EJax is now playing for a contract next year

Posted on September 22, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

With the recent record of Edwin Jackson, it is almost a certainty that he won’t be part of the Nationals post-season roster which makes his appearance tonight and next week a chance to show other general managers that he is worth signing in the off-season when he becomes a free agent. Jackson has been with 12 MLB teams and the next one could tie him with Octavio Dotel’s all-time record of 13 different teams.

The Nationals got tucked into their beds in New York last night around 3:30 AM, and Dusty Baker has promised to play the youngsters tonight. In the outfield that is easy, but in the infield Dusty Baker is only carrying Wilmer Difo and Adrian Sanchez which means either Trea Turner will have to play or Anthony Rendon. Expect an outfield of Victor Robles, Andrew Stevenson, and Rafael Bautista. Behind the plate will be a mystery guess between Pedro Severino, Raudy Read, and Jose Lobaton.

There are now 10 games remaining on the Nationals regular season schedule and tonight the Nats begin the first of a three game series against the New York Mets to finish their season series. The Nats have won the last 6 of their 7 games against the Mets in New York.

The scuffling Edwin Jackson has a good history against the Mets in 12 career games (7 starts), and he holds a 3.77 ERA which is his second best record versus any National League team.  At CitiField in particular, EJax’s career ERA is 3.00. 17 runs in his previous 3 games which was sadly only 11 1/3 innings total for an ERA of 12.71. Which Edwin Jackson will show up tonight and can he go deep in the game? Jackson last pitched exactly one week ago and only threw 55 pitches so his arm should be fresh. Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, InGame | Leave a comment

What to Expect this Postseason from the Washington Nationals

Posted on September 22, 2017 by Casey Boguslaw

(Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times)

Winning a single series (finally) is a must, but Nats fans should be setting their sights higher.

With 10 games to go and a seemingly insurmountable 4.5 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for the National League’s top seed, the Nationals have little left to play for down the stretch. Yes, surpassing the Cleveland Indians (three losses back) or Houston Astros (one loss back) could be meaningful if they meet in the World Series, but that is far down the list of priorities when preparing for the post-season.

While keeping an eye on how hitters finish down the stretch, and setting the rotation for the NLDS, there isn’t (and you shouldn’t) put much on the results the final two weeks. Remaining healthy — and getting healthy (especially a certain flowy-haired right fielder) — should be the top request from everyone involved.

Predicting a playoff series is a fool’s errand — an entire 162 game season can be proved to be meaningless in a five game series — but that doesn’t mean people don’t want to read about how their team matches up and where they can gain an advantage. Nor does it mean I am against writing it.

While one can assume the Nationals’ first round opponent will be the Chicago Cubs, crazier things have happened. I’ll discuss the potential opposition throughout this piece, but I’ll stick with generalities for now as we forecast something which hasn’t been cemented.

The more certain task is to take a look at the Nationals, but therein lies issues of its own as right now — the status of one of their best players is still up in the air. One of the main points of this piece is to focus on how the team has been playing recently, but everyone knows if Harper was on the roster these past several weeks, the outcomes would have ended up differently. Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis | Leave a comment

This was one of those games that you just flip the page to tomorrow…#Nats

Posted on September 21, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Nationals lost 3-to-2 to the Braves, and it just was not a well played game by the 1st place Nats. Four hits with no walks by the offense and a costly pick-off gave the Nationals a net of just 2 baserunners since one of the Nationals hits was a home run by Ryan Zimmerman. The Braves starting pitcher R.A. Dickey baffled the Nats tonight and Tyler Flowers worked his magic framing up pitches to frustrate the Nationals all night long.

On top of that, the Nationals had 2 errors and a few balls were not defensed well. The net-net for Tanner Roark was 3 earned runs given up over 7 innings. Once again Roark gave up a first inning run but he wasn’t helped by his defense. Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Recap | Leave a comment

Game #152 Roark gets another chance against the Braves

Posted on September 21, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Marlene Koenig for TalkNats

Last week, Tanner Roark was working on a shutout until Braves rookie Ozzie Albies took him deep in the 6th inning for 2 earnies to ruin Roark’s shutout. Since the All-Star break, Roark got back on track with a much better 3.18 ERA bouncing back from that 8.31 ERA he had in June. The starts that were skipped before the All-Star break did the trick for Roark and now he looks ready to dominate in the post-season.

The one warning sign for Roark that should not be ignored is that he has struggled under heavy pitch loads and in the 6th inning and beyond his ERA is 5.46 and that Albies home run in the 6th inning is part of those issues. On the other side of the game, Roark has pitched to a 5.79 ERA in the 1st inning this season. In between, Roark has been lights out in the last 2 months pitching to a 1.82 ERA from innings two to five.

What we have seen in our scouting of Roark is that he sometimes doesn’t show his full repertoire of pitches in his first innings of work against the other teams best hitters, and the opposition has taken advantage too often. Some pitchers can get away with saving some of their pitches for later in the game. In the post-season, Roark should not holdback with his best pitches from the start of the game and should keeping going until he is pulled which could very well be after he completes 5 innings of shutout baseball and then he can hand the ball off to the bullpen. Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, InGame | Leave a comment

Do you remember when the #Nats bullpen was the weakness and was made a strength?

Posted on September 21, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Pitching coach Mike Maddux should be smiling. There was that time the Nationals bullpen was teetering near a 6.00 ERA this season and the doom and gloom ensued and now the Nats bullpen is statistically the best bullpen in the National League in the second half of the season. We were 3 games into the 2017 when the Nationals suffered their first blown save in the 9th inning. Now the Washington Nationals bullpen has been a strength for the team since the All-Star break.

The Nationals bullpen’s statistics can’t be erased from April, May, June and early July which will skew the current numbers that have the Nationals as the 22nd best bullpen in the Majors at a 4.47 ERA. The Nationals could end up near the 19th best bullpen ERA which is occupied by the Astros at a 4.44 ERA which separates the Nats by just 0.03 now.

When you talk about “what have you done for me lately” you get to the Nats as the 3rd best bullpen in the Majors behind only the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox.

The additions of Sean Doolittle, Ryan Madson, and Brandon Kintzler in July have worked. It moved other relief pitchers to roles they could thrive in.

“Everybody got comfortable and there was direction,” Ryan Madson said. “You know what to expect more than before probably. When that happens, it is a recipe for success.”

Brandon Kintzler credits Ryan Madson for setting the tone in the bullpen and mentoring the players. Continue reading →

Posted in Analysis, Bullpen, CoachingStaff, Dusty | Leave a comment