Going Deep with The Nats

Redemption is a dish best served with quality pitches darted over it. That 17 inch pentagonal shaped dish has been Tanner Roark’s nemesis for the last 30 days when he had one of his worst professional months of baseball with a June ERA that was over 9.00 for the month pushing his 2017 ERA to a poor 5.27.

Roark has sheepishly been giving postgame interviews after each of the last 5 losses saying he feels great and his issue is mechanics. We’ve seen this before when the body won’t do what the mind wants it to do. Pitchers like Dan Haren and Doug Fister both went through that phase, and pushing velocity is not the answer — finesse is. Movement and locating pitches is what Roark’s success was built on not throwing 95 heaters, and it took Gio Gonzalez a while to learn that he is no longer a power pitcher. Gio is now winning with an 89-91 mph fastball.

The Mets are starting righty Jacob deGrom who clearly is their best pitcher once again.  Brian Goodwin will lead-off in another Dusty Baker lineup variation with Michael Taylor in the 2-hole with Daniel Murphy taking over the 3-hole to give Bryce Harper a day off.  Ryan Zimmerman will bat cleanup followed by Adam Lind who will be in left field followed by  Anthony Rendon and  Matt Wieters with Stephen Drew in the 8-hole and playing shortstop.    Continue reading →

The Nationals had to be at the park early this morning for the traditional Independence Day celebratory game on July 4th in Washington, D.C.. Just a little over 12 hours ago the Nats were celebrating their 6th walk-off winner of 2017. It was just a reminder for those who watched that game-ender last night just like the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday that the Nationals have faced some other lousy bullpens also. The good news is that Mike Rizzo will trade for some bullpen help to improve this beleaguered bunch. It is a waiting game to see if you have enough fandom and blood pressure medication and Maalox® to withstand the pain of watching another bullpen meltdown.

If you are awake early, ESPN will be doing a live interview with Bryce Harper at 9:45AM, and they promise to ask Bryce some deep questions that have never been asked before.

The Mets are starting righty Seth Lugo today and you would expect Brian Goodwin to lead-off, right? No, Dusty Baker will go with Michael Taylor leading off as righties hit Lugo about as well as lefties. Wilmer Difo gets the 2-hole today. Ryan Zimmerman and Anthony Rendon will start on the bench with Matt Wieters.  Something has to give in the random stats we have fun with because Wilmer Difo and Jose Lobaton are both starting today and each have almost polar opposite stats when they start. When Difo starts, the Nats are 16-4 in Difo starts but 6-16 when Lobaton starts. Continue reading →

Max Scherzer grew up near St. Louis, Missouri in nearby Chesterfield, Scherzer played travel ball there and went to Parkway Central High School in Chesterfield. Scherzer was initially drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 43rd round (1,291st overall) in the 2003 Major League Baseball Draft but decided that college was the right move for him at the nearby University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. It was the right move for Scherzer to go to college as he then was the Diamondbacks 1st round draft pick.

Scherzer gets to pitch this game in the first game of the 2nd half of the season, and said he expects a large contingent of family and friends in the crowd tonight. In Scherzer’s last start, he had some command issues and admitted that he had been overdoing it. Continue reading →

After today’s game, we will begin the mathematical second half of the season. Gio Gonzalez gets the start for the Nationals and will face Michael Wacha of the Cardinals. The Nationals also had some more roster moves.

The rumors of the demise of Sammy Solis were great exaggerated and not only has Solis arisen from the 60 day DL where he was placed yesterday — he is in St. Louis today and activated off of the 60 day DL that he was placed on yesterday. Solis literally went the MLB Injury Report to the active roster as Jacob Turner, the former 1st round draft pick and top prospect, was designated for assignment. While Jacob Turner was not great overall, he seemed to give it his all and was a flexible part of the pitching staff as spot-starter, long-man, set-up man, and finisher. In all, Turner logged 39.0 innings for the Nationals, and at one point, he looked like he found a home until his usage in the bullpen changed and he faltered.

General manager Mike Rizzo looked like he found a steal in Jacob Turner then it got strange. On May 14th, Jacob Turner entered the game as a reliever and pitched 2/3 of an inning. Only 3 days later, he was starting and was not stretched out. He pitched 5 shutout innings against the Pirates, but Dusty Baker sent him out for the 6th inning with a pitch count of 66 pitches when it was discussed that Turner would throw 60 to 70 pitches on that day since he was not stretched out. Nobody was warming in the bullpen and as mentioned Turner had just pitched 3 days before and was not stretched out. Turner threw 23 pitches to get just one out in the 6th inning while giving up 3-runs. His pitch count was 89 when he left. Turner never seemed to be the same after that appearance. But Turner also never complained. Turner hadn’t pitched more than 32 pitches in any of his 5 previous appearances. Yesterday, Turner gave up 5-runs and never had much. Jacob Turner’s tenure went from good to bad quickly. We wish him luck in the future.

As for Solis, it was just 4-days ago that he came in for relief for the Syracuse Chiefs and gave up 3-runs in 1 1/3 innings with 2 hits and a walk and one of the hits was a home run to Ji-Man Choi. Solis was pitching for the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs where the statline just did not look good. He finished in Syracuse with an 8.10 ERA. Welcome back Sammy. Continue reading →