Wilmer Difo is a Defensive Wizard…Who Knew?

Posted on August 9, 2017 by Michael Daalder

For all the discussion of lineup construction and Wilmer Difo’s proper place in the Nationals lineup, analysts have failed to realize one tiny, but important detail: Wilmer Difo might be the best defensive shortstop in baseball.

Yes, that includes Addison Russell, the young Cubs shortstop. Yes, that includes Andrelton Simmons, the Angels star up the middle not named Mike Trout. It includes Brandon Crawford and Jose Iglesias too, and every other shortstop in the major leagues right now.

There are two mainstream statistics used to try and determine how much a player does to help his team on defense. Both of these are “counting” statistics, which means they count up factors, like RBI’s counts up the number of runs a player has batted in. Continue reading →

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Nats get Cole’d and lose 7-3

Posted on August 8, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

This game was a pitcher’s duel until the top of the 5th inning when AJ Cole left some balls over the plate and a 1-1 tie game became a 4-1 deficit quickly when Giancarlo Stanton crushed a no-doubter 3-run home run into centerfield.

Vance Worley was helped by his defense once again even when he was on the ropes in a 3-2 count with runners on 2nd base and 1st base, Dusty Baker put the runners in motion and Ryan Zimmerman swung at a pitch above the strike zone to strikeout and Adrian Sanchez was easily thrown out at 3rd base. Instead of bases loaded and Adam Lind stepping in with one-out — the inning was over.

Speaking of Zimmerman, he hit into 3 doubleplays in the traditional sense of the 6-4-3 groundball variety, and the strike ’em out/throw ’em out variety, and an Adrian Sanchez TOOTBLAN turned a line-out to leftfield into Sanchez being “doubled” off of 1st base. Zimmerman’s batting average slipped to .302 with a .909 OPS on his 0-for-4 game leaving 5 runners-on-base. Continue reading →

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Game #111 Worley-Cole needs a reverse of last week

Posted on August 8, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats

It was six days ago when Vance Worley did a “Cy Young” imitation on the mound in Marlins Park. Worley, as you might remember, was with the Nationals in Spring Training and did an admirable job, but management chose Jeremy Guthrie over Vance Worley and the journeyman went on his way only to end up now with the Marlins. Last week Worley and his defense befuddled the Nationals batters while holding them to only two-hits over 7 innings of shutout baseball relying on some great defense and luck of the BABIP gods. He only struck out 3 batters and had the great fortune of 3 doubleplays.

In that game, AJ Cole was the opposing pitcher and he did not get much luck but also did not make his own luck giving up 2 home runs and 5 runs over 5 innings. Much of Cole’s issues started with 4 walks, but the real story could have been that Cole took the Nats into the 5th inning with only a 1-0 deficit and he was stung by his own team defense when Dee Gordon led-off the 5th inning with a triple over Bryce Harper’s head that should have been caught and then Cole unraveled. Dusty Baker had nobody warming in the bullpen when the damage could have been limited, and it was unfortunate as Cole gave up 4 runs in the inning and departed after the inning with a 5-0 deficit. Continue reading →

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Matt Wieters makes an impact with each RBI and his catcher’s ERA

Posted on August 8, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Photo by @MomWithNatitude for TalkNats

Nobody seems to make more of an impact with an RBI on this 2017 Washington Nationals than Matt Wieters. Last night he had another RBI on a single, and the Nationals won 3-2. In fact, so far this season when Wieters drives in a baserunner, the Nationals have a 22-5 record. He has done everything from a walk-off hit this year to the dramatic grand slam game winning RBI’s on Sunday in Wrigley Field.

Even when Wieters starts and does something or nothing spectacular, the Nationals are 56-25 which is a .691 winning percentage, and when Wieters doesn’t start — the Nats have a losing record of 10-19. This just seems to defy all logic. How can that be? Wieters is tied for 35th of all MLB catchers in fWAR at +0.5.  Part of that positive WAR came from a quick start to Wieters career with the Nationals as he lit it up in April slashing a healthy .301/.400/.534/.934 and then he dropped off.

The eye test can dispute Wieters skills as a defensive catcher as we have seen that he actually un-frames strikes and that is backed up by Baseball Prospectus which has Wieters as the 85th worst pitch framer as a negative out of 89 catchers in 2017 and 83rd worst in what they call “Fielding Runs Above Average” which in Wieters case is actually “Fielding Runs Below Average”. Jonathan Lucroy is by far the worst and Tyler Flowers is by far the best in the Majors. But the contradictory stat is from Fangraphs that rates Wieters as the 9th best overall defensive catcher in the Majors. Those ratings seem like almost polar opposites. Interestingly, Jose Lobaton rated as only the 30th best pitch framer and was actually behind Derek Norris in the ratings. Continue reading →

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Nats win a tight one 3-2

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

Doolittle K’s Tyler Moore to end the game. Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats

With Max Scherzer starting this game, you usually feel confident that the outcome in the game will be a win. The Nationals offense only scored 2 runs for Scherzer, and Max gave up 2-runs to leave this game to his bullpen and the Nationals offsense. It isn’t how Dusty Baker drew it up, and in the end it was Adam Lind’s clutch pinch-hit single for the game winner in the 8th inning. It also needed a big zero from Brandon Kintzler and Sean Doolittle to nail down the game in the 8th and 9th innings.

Max Scherzer went 7.0 innings of 2-run baseball throwing 114 pitches in a no-decision. In the 7th inning, the voice of MASN, F.P. Santangelo, said Scherzer was “running on empty”. Scherzer stayed in the game until he recorded the final out in the 7th inning. Continue reading →

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Game #110 Nats welcome back Max Scherzer

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

It was just 6-days ago that All-Star and team ace Max Scherzer was facing newbie left-hander Chris O’Grady, and the Nats attacked early to spot Scherzer a 6-run lead highlighted by a 3-run home run by Max Scherzer which was the first of his career. It was all a laugher until Scherzer came out for the bottom of the 2nd inning and pulled himself out of the game with neck pain. For Nats fans, they did not know until a while later what was wrong with Scherzer, and there was some very nervous fans as this team will only go as far as Scherzer takes them.  Scherzer never went on the DL so here is back again in this exact match-up Part Deux with O’Grady -if- the weather cooperates.

The Nationals also laid out their rotation with Scherzer tonight, AJ Cole tomorrow, Gio Gonzalez on Wednesday and Tanner Roark on Thursday.  Continue reading →

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6th 18-gamer: Relief Help Arrives as the Rotation Faces Adversity; and Bryce!

Posted on August 7, 2017 by Section222

For previous 18 gamers, click here.

Another pretty good 18 game set for the Nats, keyed by a newly reliable bullpen.   10-8 put us at 64-44, still 20 games over .500 and 13 games up on the Miami Marlins in the NL East. With the magic number already at 42 with 54 games to go, October baseball looks pretty much assured.  The tally so far with two thirds of the sets completed is 13-5, 10-8, 11-7, 9-9, 11-7, and 10-8.  The Nats still haven’t had a losing set yet, and they managed to increase their lead in the division by 3 1/2 games, even though played just over .500 baseball.

The real accomplishment of this set was holding serve with our starting pitching staff decimated by injuries.  Consider this: Max and Stras started only 5 games between them, and Max lasted just an inning in his third start of the set, while Stras pitched only two innings in his second.  That could have been a recipe for disaster.  But Gio was excellent once again, Tanner rebounded after an absymal  showing in his two starts in the previous 18 games, and Edwin Jackson came through with two good starts, making up for below par performances from Erik Fedde in his first major league outing and A.J. Cole in his lone start in the set.  Check out the summary: Continue reading →

Posted in 18GameRecap, Analysis, Bullpen, Bullpen, Gio, Harper, Heisey, MikeRizzo, Murphy, Rendon, Roark, RyanZimmerman, Scherzer, Strasburg | Leave a comment

Nationals-Cubs Season Series Previews Exciting NLDS

Posted on August 6, 2017 by Michael Daalder

(Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports)

I’m a Chicago Cubs fan 155 games a year. Those seven other games I’m rooting hard for my Washington Nationals. I’m a Nationals fan all season long. I watch almost every Nationals game on MLB TV, and when they aren’t playing, the TV is switched to WGN or CSN, and I’m watching the Cubs play excellent ball. So you should believe me when I tell you the Nationals and Cubs are the real deal. Come October, the Nationals and Cubs almost certainly will be battling it out for the right to play in the NLCS unless the Brewers pull off the miracle.

As a DC native but recent Chicago transplant who loves baseball, I was at all three games in Chicago this weekend. Of course, I was decked out in Nats gear, root root rooting for the away team. As a dual Nationals-Cubs fan, there’s not a better time to be alive. Continue reading →

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OK, #THIS was the biggest win of the season!

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

Matt Wieters Wrigley Field Grand Slam —- Photo by Michael Daalder for TalkNats.com

The Washington Nationals just came back from 3-runs from behind in this game to win this season finale game and take the season series against a healthy Cubs team. The Nationals were led by 5 RBIs from Matt Wieters who was the hero of this game. The Nationals were behind by a score of 4-1 going into the 7th inning. Continue reading →

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Game #109 Nats/Cubs season regular season finale

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

Photo by LouAnn Solis for TalkNats

The season is now over 2/3rds complete. The Washington Nationals are counting down the days this season until they get back key injured players back like Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, Trea Turner, Jayson Werth, Michael Taylor, Stephen Drew, Koda Glover, Enny Romero, and with a miracle — Adam Eaton.

The Chicago Cubs have only one player who is injured — just one — Addision Russell.  The Cubs also only have a 1/2 game lead in the NL Central.

We are literally watching the Cubs playoff roster, and the only player they are missing is the .241 batting Russell. The Nationals are playing with a split-squad roster 3/8ths of the Opening Day roster is on the DL, and on days when Lobaton starts, the Nationals have 1/2 of the line-up as replacement players. This is not to say that Wilmer Difo, Brian Goodwin and whoever is playing leftfield aren’t doing an admirable job, but let’s be real — Brian Goodwin leading off isn’t wreaking havoc like Trea Turner.

Today, in an insult to injury way, Erick Fedde replaces Gio Gonzalez who is on paternity leave, and today’s winning team will decide the season series as the win/loss record is 3-3 right now. The season series only matters if the teams end up tied at the end of the regular season as that will determine home field advantage.

There you have it — Erick Fedde goes up against four-time All-Star and three-time top-5 Cy Young pitcher left-handed Jon Lester. Continue reading →

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