Game #140 Mike Rizzo shocks NatsTown by calling up #1 prospect Victor Robles

Posted on September 7, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

 

Photo courtesy of Andrew Ross for TalkNats

All you have to know is that any time Mike Rizzo says “he loves the team he has” you better look around because he sent a loud and clear message today with calling up the Washington Nationals #1 prospect Victor Robles. The 20-year-old Robles is better than advertised if you have seen him play. He is a 4 ½ tool player now as he still has to fill out that frame of his, and Robles needs more seasoning to hone in his tools as he will many times frustrate you with baserunning and defensive mistakes of aggression — which will remind you of the young Bryce Harper. The first lesson that his coaches must tell him is that you can’t ignore your base coaches and try to take the extra base and don’t try to throw behind baserunners or over your cut-off man’s head.

Many of Robles tools are raw — But this kid is as good as they get. He will turn singles into doubles and doubles into triples. He has a beautiful swing that some liken to Andrew McCutchen and my choice has always been Alfonso Soriano.

Robles played in this years All Star Future’s Game and was already chosen as one of the Nationals representatives in this year’s crop for the prestigious Arizona Fall League. There are no guarantees that Robles will make the post-season roster as the first step is to see if he is the 2011 version of Mike Trout or the 2016 version of Gary Sanchez. What Robles gives Dusty Baker and Mike Rizzo is a chance — because the outfield is thin now as we wrote yesterday the numbers are not working now and we don’t know what the future will be.  Continue reading →

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Gio does the shutout Houdini; Zim powers the offense; Nats sweep!

Posted on September 6, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

For the first-time this season, the Washington Nationals improved to 31 games above .500 with this 3-game sweep of the Miami Marlins posting a final score of 8-to-1. Gio Gonzalez didn’t make it easy on himself as he labored through 5.0 innings giving up no runs while throwing 101 pitches and working some magic to get out of a bases loaded jam with no outs and then the next inning he had men on 2nd and 1st base with no outs and worked out of that situation!

The Nationals scored 2-runs in the 1st inning as Trea Turner started off the game with a single and scored quickly. The Nationals had 3 baserunners thrown out in the first two innings of the game or else the score could have been much higher. The Nats got a nice ambush oppo home run from Ryan Zimmerman in a 3-0 count for the first hit of his career in a 3-0 count. Michael Taylor also added a home run. The Nationals tallied 12 hits and 4 walks in the game with hits from all positional starters except Jayson Werth. A few Nats padded their stats as Trea Turner had 2 hits and a walk, Anthony Rendon had 2 hits, and Michael Taylor had 2 hits.

Ryan Zimmerman’s home run was his 31st of the 2017 season matching his combined home run totals of the previous two seasons. If Zimmerman can hit another 5 home runs this season, he will match his home run total of the previous 3 years of 36.  Continue reading →

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Game #139 Gio Gonzalez fans should be in the majority tonight!

Posted on September 6, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Stan4Nats for TalkNats.com

While south Florida is bracing for Hurricane Irma, Hialeah’s own, Gio Gonzalez, will start the final game of the season between the Nationals and Marlins in Miami. Usually the Gio Gonzalez fans are out in large numbers when Gio pitches in Miami, and with the sparse crowds expected for this finale, the Gio fans could be the majority tonight.

Tonight’s game is extremely important to Gio Gonzalez for many reasons and chief among them is that he is trying to pitch his team into the post-season, but also Gio needs to bounce back from his poor performance 6-days ago when he gave up 5-runs to the Brewers over 6-innings on 115 pitches. A week ago there was the Cy Young talk in the National League shifting some favor to Gio Gonzalez, and after giving up the 5 earned runs it pushed his ERA up 18 points. Yes, Gio’s ERA is excellent but Gio might need to be the best to have a chance of winning the award. Yes, the odds are against Gio as they were against Kyle Hendricks last year who also didn’t win the Cy Young award when he led the NL in ERA at 2.13 while Max Scherzer was 8th at 2.96 and actually won the award. WAR, K/9, I/G, WHIP, and reputation still are all factors in the voting aside from ERA. Continue reading →

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The outfield without Bryce Harper just isn’t the same!

Posted on September 6, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Nationals are 16-and-9 since Bryce Harper got injured on that rainy day back on August 12th. That’s an impressive .640 winning percentage — but don’t let that fool you for a second that the Nats are guaranteed to keep winning at that pace against the elite teams in the post-season without Harper unless the current outfield steps it up offensively and defensively. Yes, it was encouraging that the Nationals beat the Astros in 2-of-3 games last month to show it is possible to beat a very good team without Harper.

The sum of all fears is what we wrote about leading up to the trade deadline was that it might be prudent to get a “rental” player like Zack Cozart just to have one more elite-level player to expand the roster just in case you needed to shift Trea Turner to centerfield in case of something unforeseen. Since then, the unforeseen happened. The only external move would be to dig back into the Nats’ own Minor Leagues for the only one close enough to be the next impact player like Bryce but even time is running short on that that.

Almost within a few weeks the replacement starting outfield of Brian Goodwin and Michael Taylor plus superstar Bryce Harper all got injured. Two of the three of those young outfielders are still on the disabled list. Like last year after the trade deadline, injuries happen. Wilson Ramos was lost for the season and his replacements were a combined 3-for-19 in the post-season. Continue reading →

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Magic 8 ball! Strasburg pitches gem and Severino/Murphy was his offense!

Posted on September 5, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Stan4Nats for TalkNats

Another Stephen Strasburg gem tonight and those calf cramps bit Stras again limiting him to a 6.0 inning shutout instead of going deeper in the game. Pedro Severino in his first start this season got the Nats on the board with a nice RISP line-drive single to put his team up 1-0, and Daniel Murphy added an insurance run on a home run in the 8th inning proved to be the difference. Murphy was robbed earlier in the game of a home run as Giancarlo Stanton reached over the wall to steal one.

The Magic # is at 8 with this win, and the Nationals once again are back to 30 games above .500 with this 2-to-1 win. The bullpen was excellent with 1 1/3 innings of pitching from Sammy Solis who had to work around an error, and 2/3 of an inning from Matt Albers who had to face Stanton in a 1-0 game and Albers struck him out. Sean Doolittle earned his 15th save for the Nationals, and he was tagged with an unearned run.

The Nationals managed 8 hits tonight which came in pairs of hits by Severino, Alejando De Aza, Daniel Murphy, and Adam Lind. The issue was the Nationals were only 1-for-7 with RISP situations and as mentioned Pedro Severino had the only RISP hit. In fact, Severino was 2-for-4 in the game and raised his season average to .333. Lobaton’s last RBI was back in July as was his last 2-hit game. It also appeared that Severino called an excellent game, and his only faux pas was a passed ball in the 9th inning. Continue reading →

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Game #138 Stephen Strasburg is back!

Posted on September 5, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Marideth Sandler for TalkNats

With 25-games remaining in this regular season, the clock is ticking to get back the remaining disabled list players and most notably Bryce Harper, Brian Goodwin, and Koda Glover. Yes, there is still time as we count by calendar days also — but you want them to get real MLB games to compete in. Harper as we commented this morning we were told by a source was going to “jog” this week. Sure enough this afternoon Harper was seen walking steps. That is further proof that his rehab of his bone contusion in his knee is progressing. Continue reading →

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Magic #10 as AJ Cole gets the win in Miami thanks to Murphy/Rendon

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

This game was close for 6.0 innings at a score of 3-to-2 when the Nationals exploded for 4-runs in the top of the 7th inning after Raudy Read got a pinch-hit single which was the first hit of his career. AJ Cole had 1 earned run on his ledger over 5 2/3 innings for a very good start. The bullpen shut down the Marlins the rest of the way for the final score of 7-to-2.

Both Daniel Murphy and Anthony Rendon were a triple shy of hitting for the cycle. Murphy had 3 RBIs in the game and Rendon had 4 RBIs. Rendon’s league leading WAR increased to +6.5 with Giancarlo Stanton behind him at +6.2 as Stanton hit his MLB leading 53rd home run last night. Continue reading →

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Game #137 The Nats are back in Miami….again!

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

With Trea Turner, Michael A. Taylor and Gio Gonzalez back near their hometowns in Florida, it would be good to get some home cooking at the Gonzalez residence. It seems like the Nationals just played the Marlins because they did — last Monday to Wednesday in Nationals Park. This 3-game series in Miami will mark the final regular season games between these two teams this year.

After this, it looks like the Nationals will be seeing a much different Marlins team in spring training if rumors are true that the new Marlins owners will slash payroll to $85 million or lower depending on if they trade away Giancarlo Stanton whose salary will jump from $14.5 million this year to $25 million next year before it climbs to $32 million in 2023.

Tonight’s starting pitcher for the Marlins is lefty Adam Conley who the Nats faced last week, and he should be with the Marlins next year based on his salary level of $537,500 this season.

The Nationals will be calling back AJ Cole and placing Erick Fedde on the 10-day DL that for a forearm flexor strain that will most likely end his season. Cole who was sent back to the Syracuse Chiefs less than 10-days ago would have been eligible to come back to the team as the Syracuse Chiefs season ends this afternoon. The Nationals also recalled Pedro Severino today as he was eligible to be brought back after he was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse on August 25th. At least three more Chiefs players will join the Nationals in Miami tomorrow including Andrew Stevenson, Rafael Bautista, and Adrian Sanchez. Continue reading →

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Little Big Leaguer returns back to Williamsport as part of his historic week

Posted on September 4, 2017 by Andrew Lang

At the age of 12, the 4’11” 89 pound shortstop Max Moroff was part of the Maitland, Florida team competing in the Little League World Series and dreaming of being a big leaguer one day. And 12 years later Moroff fulfilled that dream, and he was back in Williamsport as a Major Leaguer for the Pittsburgh Pirates playing the first ever game known as the MLB Little League Classic. The players donned the Player’s Weekend nickname jerseys in that Sunday night game on ESPN. Moroff’s nickname on his jersey: Maxwell. It was Maxwell’s house back in 2005 when he bunked in the dorms at The Grove in Williamsport as part of the LLWS.

“I never thought I would go back as a big leaguer,” Max Moroff said. “So cool hanging out with the [Little League] kids. It was surreal. The fields, the dorms and the game room are exactly the same. What an experience.”

Time is kind of frozen at the Little League complex. Not much has changed over the years which gives it the charm of being cast back to simpler times when baseball started as a kid’s game. The MLB Little League Classic game was played at BB&T Ballpark at historic Bowman Field a 91-year-old minor league ballpark located 5 miles from where the Little League World Series takes place. It is a small minor league ballpark in Williamsport and home of the Williamsport Crosscutters, currently a short-season team of the Phillies and they play in the same New York-Penn League as the Nationals’ Auburn Doubledays. MLB spent money to spruce up the ballpark, and the 2,366-seat venue was packed with 2,596 lucky fans at game time including all of the Little Leaguers.

“It was refreshing every once in a while to be able to look in the stands and see the kids watching the game,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “It was one of the highlights of my career. The handshakes that I got today from little people. The smiles. The thank yous. They were heartfelt and real… I was humbled to be part of it. I was just grateful I got this experience.”

For the 24-year-old Moroff, he said it was surreal walking around the Little League sites like the fields, the dorms in The Grove, and the game room that he played in 12 years before. This game literally cut his life exactly in half. Two segments of a dozen years each. His Little League time transformed him and his love for the game, and at heart — he is still a kid. Physically, Moroff didn’t even grow much more. He stands today at only 5’10” and plays some of the same positions he played back in 2005 although he doesn’t pitch anymore or play catcher. As a Major Leaguer, Moroff in his rookie season has played shortstop, 2nd base, and 3rd base. He will play wherever his manager Clint Hurdle pencils him in and hopes to play outfield one day also. Continue reading →

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Zim’s 30th HR in the 9th inning breaks up the shutout; Nats lose 7-2

Posted on September 3, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo Credit Marlene Koenig‏ @royalmusing

The Washington Nationals accumulated three hits in this game and were shutout at the 2 out point in the 9th inning when Ryan Zimmerman jacked a 2-run home run to make it the final score of 7-to-2. Craig Counsell‘s instincts of skipping Matt Garza and going with a bullpen staff today worked.

Edwin Jackson gave up 5-runs and made 5 bad pitches today which the Brewers did not miss. The Nats offense on the other hand was stymied most of the day. The Nats had a few chances but couldn’t put together the big hits early even though the Nats were 1-for-4 in RISP — that one hit was an infield dribbler by Zim who had 2 of the 3 hits and Trea Turner had the other which was a double off of the outfield wall.

The Nationals lost 3 of the 4 games in this series, but the offense never really showed up as Murphy and Rendon in the middle of the line-up have continued to struggle. Murphy left 2 runners on base and Rendon left 3 runners on base.  Continue reading →

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