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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The Nationals have some interesting farmhands. Who could make a difference for them this season?

Posted on August 5, 2017 by SaoMagnifico

Victor Robles —- Photo by Gerry Gleckel for TalkNats.com

The 2017 baseball season has really flown by, and we now stand less than a month away from September 1, the magical date upon which rosters expand and games become 45 minutes longer because of all the extra pitching changes.

Major League Baseball and players’ association negotiators talked about cutting down the size of expanded September rosters while hashing out the collective bargaining agreement (CBA), in exchange for increasing active roster sizes from 25 to 26. Neither of those things happened. So, just as in previous seasons, we can expect to see upward of 30 players hanging out in each dugout in about a month’s time.

That begs the question of: Who are we going to see joining the Washington Nationals?

Some of the additions are obvious. Reliever Trevor Gott is reportedly recovering from hernia surgery, and it’s unclear how long that will sideline him; if he’s healthy, though, he should be one of the first September call-ups. Catcher Pedro Severino will return to the team, as will outfielder Rafael Bautista, currently rehabbing after an injury suffered not long after he made his major league debut early this season. Continue reading →

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The Nationals couldn’t get past that 4-run 1st inning; #Nats had their chances!

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

The Washington Nationals got started off well in the 1st inning when Bryce Harper planted a John Lackey pitch deep into rightfield to get the scoring started at 1-0.

Edwin Jackson‘s 1st inning did not go as planned with four runs given up, and it could have been a lot worse as Bryce Harper’s defense got Jackson an out when he nailed Willson Contreras going 1st to 3rd on a single on a 97.8 bullet Harper threw to Anthony Rendon at 3rd base. Continue reading →

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Game #108 EJax facing the team that booted him!

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

Embed from Getty Images

There are many MLB players who have signed big free agent contracts and got the pink slip. Pablo Sandoval just got booted by the Red Sox, and he is one of the most notable in recent years. Some call it addition by subtraction and getting paid to go away. Edwin Jackson was released by the Cubs on July 27th of 2015 and his journey back to the Washington Nationals could be kismet if Jackson can continue to win games for his Nationals’ team.

Today Edwin Jackson faces the Cubs and their manager, Joe Maddon, who is the manager who wanted him gone. It probably wasn’t anything personal, rather based on performance as the Cubs were looking to upgrade at the time.

The irony is that the Cubs are starting right-handed John Lackey today, and his ERA is 4.87 which is his second worst season of his career, and his ERA is much higher than the 3.19 ERA that Jackson had when he was released by these Cubs. Not exactly apples to apples, Jackson was a reliever in 2015. The nearly 39-year-old Lackey is in the last year of his contract with the Cubs and part of their World Series winning team from last year.

The Nationals won an exciting game last night and were able to rest five of their eight relievers although Oliver Perez did warm-up last night and was not used. All relievers should be available for today’s game. Continue reading →

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One of the biggest wins of the season

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

Photo for TalkNats by Michael Daalder

The Washington Nationals led from the first inning to the end in an impressive win over the reigning World Series champs in a game that finished at 4-2 in front of a sold-out Wrigley Field crowd and a national audience on the MLB Network.

This game showed exactly why Mike Rizzo spent so much in prospects to trade  for Ryan Madson, Sean Doolittle and Brandon Kintzler in July. There was no repeat of the June 29th game against a depleted Cubs team where the Nats blew a 2-run lead in the 9th inning as Dusty Baker went to Blake Treinen who ended up with a blown-save-loss. There was no déjà vu rather a case of déjà new.

These 3 newly acquired relievers finished up the 7th-8th-9th innings with shutdown baseball to Hold & Save a win against the Cubs. Kintzler had to hold a one-run lead in the 7th, and Madson in the 8th inning had a two-run lead, and Doolittle for the 9th completed his 5th save for the Nationals in 5 chances while throwing just 6-pitches while finishing this game with a 5-4-3 around the horn doubleplay turned behind him.

It was a very good Tanner Roark who had a 6-inning shutout going, but to nobody’s surprise was brought out for the 7th inning with a 97 pitch count, and Roark almost on cue gave up 2 runs quickly — very quickly actually as the 3rd batter he faced smacked a two-run homer to cut the lead to a narrow 3-2 score then Roark was quickly pulled by Dusty Baker. What was gained there? Kintzler still had to work to get 2-outs in what was now a one-run lead instead of a three-run lead. Why exactly was Roark out there for the 7th with this new bullpen? Again, this is why you have this bullpen. If Roark was at 85-to-90 pitches then you could see the reason to give him some rope. After Roark gave up a first-pitch leadoff double in the 7th inning, Baker left him in to pitch to more batters.  Continue reading →

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Game #107 Nationals fly into Chicago for the first time this year

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

The facts are if the season ended today the Nationals would be playing the Chicago Cubs in the first round of the NLDS, but don’t think the current Nationals roster and the results this weekend will be a sneak preview. The good news is that this is not the playoffs because the Nationals are missing several key players who are on the disabled list. It was a Cubs pitcher back on June 29th who caused an injury that sent a key Nats player to the disabled list.

The Cubs are extremely healthy, motivated, and talking big and bold while the Nats have an injury list that has 12 lines filled-out on it, and we have no idea yet who will be pitching for the Nationals on Saturday and Sunday due to injuries.

The last time these two teams played each other, the Nationals split the four game series back in Washington, D.C. on June 26 to June 29th that finished in an excruciating way when Pedro Strop threw a pitch a foot inside on Trea Turner and broke his wrist. The Nationals were ready to take 3-of-the-4 games in that series until Blake Treinen was given the ball in the 9th inning of that June 29th game with a 4-2 lead and could not close it out as one ball went over Stephen Drew which Trea Turner most likely would have caught if he was still in the game.

The Nationals are coming off of 17 innings in Miami where they didn’t look recognizable in terms of quality of play. The Cubs have lost 2-games in a row where their new acquisitions of Justin Wilson and Jose Quintana did not play well. Wilson had a blown save last night giving up 2 hits and allowing 2 inherited runners to score and Quintana started the game and gave up 6 runs in just 5 innings. The Cubs closer Wade Davis took the loss giving up 2 runs and 4 hits in just 1 inning on 30 pitches. On Wednesday, the Cubs were shutout by Zack Godley, and in that game Justin Wilson gave up 1 run while walking 2 batters and 1 hit. Continue reading →

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Carter Kieboom was touched by a baseball card!

Posted on August 3, 2017 by Andrew Lang

On May 11th, Carter Kieboom’s future was looking up as a top prospect for the Washington Nationals Single-A affiliate Hagerstown Suns. Kieboom was exceeding expectations with the bat and glove and showing off some surprising power and a big .984 OPS. He got quite the scare the next day as he went down in a heap of pain running to 1st base that gave Nats fans a scare thinking what had just happened to Adam Eaton. The 19-year-old middle infielder was lucky the injury wasn’t season ending. It was a Grade 2/3 hamstring injury that CBS Sports originally reported he would need just a few weeks, and he would actually need nearly 2 months to heal and rehab and now Kieboom is on a rehab assignment at the Washington Nationals Gulf Coast League (GCL) affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida.

The extra time away from baseball allowed Kieboom some extra time to reflect on his own life and where he wanted it to go.  The 2016 #1 draft pick of the Nationals was inspired by this video he saw which featured a man opening up packs of Bowman baseball cards that are part of the Topps sets, and the packs included an autographed Carter Kieboom card along with Mike Trout and others. The man opening the cards is Steve Winfree of Tennessee who is in need of a kidney and his wife, Heather, had a ‘reveal’ card she had custom made at Topps inserted into the pack to let him know that she was donating her kidney to him. The video has gone viral with over 240,000 views just on YouTube but millions worldwide on other platforms.  Continue reading →

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The bullpen shuffle will get shuffled some more with the Enny Romero injury

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

By now you have seen another image of a Nationals pitcher being removed from a game and escorted off of the field with the medical staff. Within a month it has been a sight you have seen 5 times, and each time you hold your breath hoping it is minor. You hate to see when the trainer goes out to the mound, and that started with Joe Ross on July 9th and continued through last night. There was Stephen Strasburg’s arm issue exactly 2 weeks after Joe Ross, and then Enny Romero with back spasms then Max Scherzer on Tuesday night which was 2 weeks minus 2 days from Strasburg’s injury, and Enny Romero once again was pulled early from an appearance last night with an apparent injury and this time it was not back spasms.

In the 7th inning last night, Romero looked to be in pain, and we kind of hoped it was just back spasms again, but this time it is the dreaded forearm tightness. We will hope for the best for young Enny that it is nothing serious. He will almost certainly head to the disabled list. Continue reading →

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Brandon Kintzler had a great #Nats debut; That was the only #Nats highlight…

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Washington Nationals totaled 4 hits in a disappointing low-energy 7-0 loss to the Miami Marlins. All the hits were from players who were not on the opening day roster: Brian Goodwin, Wilmer Difo, Adrian Sanchez and newcomer Howie Kendrick.

AJ Cole struggled some with control but he also was not helped by his defense. The bullpen wasn’t great after they took over in the 6th inning until Brandon Kintzler took over with 2-men on in the 7th inning and 2 outs and Kintzler struck out Ichiro Suzuki to start his Nationals’ career. In the 8th inning, Kintzler struck out Giancarlo Stanton and got both Dee Gordon and Christian Yelich out on groundballs.

Enny Romero exited the game with “forearm tightness and spasms” which is something new for Enny who had back spasms last week which have been hampering him for a while. Dusty Baker indicated that the team might have to bring back Sammy Solis.

The game began with 7.0 innings of domination by Vance Worley who was with the Nationals in Spring Training, and the Nats cut him in favor of Jeremy Guthrie. During the game, Worley was assisted by some nifty defense by Yelich and Gordon and some great defensive positioning. He got out of trouble twice on doubleplay balls, and only struck out 3 batters of which Ryan Zimmerman was K’d twice. The game ended on home run robbery by Giancarlo Stanton skying well over the wall to steal a 2-run home run from Brian Goodwin.

“There’s some much needed rest tomorrow before we head to Chicago,” Dusty Baker said. “Not a very good series for us here.”

The Nationals were 3-for-30 in the series from Bryce Harper, Daniel Murphy and Ryan Zimmerman in the middle of the order. You can do the math as Harper had 2 of the hits, Murphy had 1 and Zimmerman an 0-fer in the series. Daniel Murphy had the day off along with Matt Wieters which essentially give them two days off with the much needed day-off tomorrow and then the team will head to Chicago for a weekend series against the Cubs.

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Game #106 A.J. Cole is back!

Posted on August 2, 2017 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Washington Nationals have another new-look lineup with Howie Kendrick at 2nd base, Jose Lobaton at catcher and AJ Cole was activated to start. Adam Lind will start in left field.

Brandon Kintzler was also added to the active roster and the corresponding moves to make room for Cole and Kintzler were optioning Sammy Solis and Erick Fedde back to Triple-A Syracuse. Continue reading →

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