Going Deep with The Nats

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 →

The Nationals take on the St. Louis Cardinals in a quick 3-game road trip in the mid-point of the season before returning for the Nationals traditional home series in Washington, D.C. for Independence Day on July 4th.

Tanner Roark is back on the mound after throwing 116 pitches 5 days ago where he threw his final 4-innings of shutout baseball, but unfortunately gave up 6-runs in the first 2-innings to lose the game and push his ERA to 5.15. Roark had come off of a 69 pitch 2 2/3 inning outing 11 days ago and got an extra day’s rest in his Sunday start. Unfortunately, he pitched a 40-pitch 1st inning in his last start that really took a lot of him, and Dusty Baker had him go to 116 pitches.  Continue reading →

Nats fans should be thrilled to be in a position in this series to have no worse than a split in the series with a chance to win this 4-game set. The pitching match-up favors the Cubs as they can start their line-up today with 3 lefties to go against Joe Ross. The Cubs have one of their best pitchers on the mound in Jon Lester.

We don’t know if Dusty Baker decided to change-up his original line-up, but generally on a day game he would have Jose Lobaton catching, but in his last 22 at-bats against Jon Lester, Matt Wieters is batting .364 with 6 RBIs and Dusty Baker is sticking with his “A” line-up for the afternoon finale today against the Chicago Cubs.

Dusty on Todd Ricketts "crumble" statement: "we're not playing Todd" #cubs #nats

— Byron Kerr (@ByronKerr) June 29, 2017

The Fangraphs ratings for the All-Star game are complete, and Nats fans will be mostly pleased that Ryan Zimmerman was chosen…but not as a starter. They rightfully picked Paul Goldschmidt and it would have been Freddie Freeman if he wasn’t injured. Rendon was edged out by Justin Turner. Dave Cameron of Fangraphs did choose Daniel Murphy and Bryce Harper as his starters. Cameron only chose one Nationals pitcher and that is Max Scherzer. Of course Stephen Strasburg is worthy, but you need that mix of starters and relievers. Gio Gonzalez didn’t make the list mostly because of how Cameron uses fWAR ratings. Continue reading →

This weekend is the mathematical halfway point of the 162 game regular season after Saturday night’s game. Onward to tonight is the 3rd game of this 4-game series with the Chicago Cubs. The winner of tonight’s game at the very least has earned a series split.

The Washington Nationals pitch Stephen Strasburg and the Cubs have the struggling John Lackey going tonight.

After last night’s game, the Cubs had a clubhouse issue after the Nats ran wild on Miguel Montero who placed much of the blame on his now ex-teammate Jake Arrieta. We say ex-teammate because the team immediately shot back and released Montero. No anonymous sources, no un-named gossip, none of that. Montero just expressed how he felt to the media in the post-game yesterday, and now he is an ex-Cub, separated from his teammates who he sprayed with champagne just 8 months ago as the World Series champs. Losing causes issues in the clubhouse no matter what happened last year as players live in the here and now. Ken Rosenthal reports issues with personnel in the San Francisco Giants bullpen, and you hear that there could be some clubhouse issues with the Mets and Asdrubal Cabrera and the Phillies with Freddy Galvis. Losing causes stress, and maybe there is some honor in putting your name to the issues even if it leads to a loss of your job. Some players are just complainers and whiners, and most of the media members know who those players are and don’t bother reporting it unless a player is willing to put their name to the story. Some media outlets won’t use un-named sources.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56gbKX0fmzA

Here are the Nats stats against John Lackey:

In the last 15 days, Ryan Zimmerman has had his struggles slashing .205/.250/.250/.500 while batting .275 over the last month. Zimmerman overall still has some lofty stats and is batting .340 based on his en fuego month of April when he batted .420. Contrast those numbers with Michael Taylor who is making hay when the sun shines in the 8-hole in the order and the last 2 weeks Taylor is slashing .366/ .381/ .854/ 1.235.

What we learned from TN member AllFoNats is that MAT has some very large gaps in his home/road stats this year:

The one thing we know is Michael Taylor also hits well in front of his family in Florida. While sample sizes are small, there might be something to “Home” versus being away from home(s).

Chicago Cubs at Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, 1500 South Capitol Street SE, Washington, DC 20003
1st Pitch:  7:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN, MLB Network (out-of-market), Comcast (Chicago), MLB.TV
Nats Radio: 106.7 FM The Fan; SiriusXM® XM 183 Sirius 216 (Internet 869)

Line-ups (subject to change without notice):

1. Trea Turner SS
2. Brian Goodwin LF
3. Bryce Harper RF
4. Ryan Zimmerman 1B
5. Daniel Murphy 2B
6. Anthony Rendon 3B
7. Matt Wieters C
8. Michael Taylor CF
9. Stephen Strasburg RHP