The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

The Washington Nationals looked to be in great shape going into the into the 7^th inning. Interim-manager Miguel Cairo went to his bullpen and allowed starter MacKenzie Gore to book another really good start on his season. The problem was Clayton Beeter walked two batters with one out, and Konnor Pilkington came in to face Kyle Schwarber who greeted him with the game-winning home run. Pilkington would only get one out and get pulled after a 4-run inning for Orlando Ribalta. That was three pitchers to get three outs in that 7^th inning.

On March 27, Opening Day started great for the Washington Nationals as they took a 1-0 lead into the 7^th with MacKenzie Gore outdueling Philadelphia’s ace, Zack Wheeler. These two match up tonight again in Nationals Park in a rematch of Opening Day. The difference is the Nationals have a much different bullpen from that game in which Lucas Sims took the blown save, and Colin Poche took the loss.

The Washington Nationals returned home last night after a quick west coast swing that finished with three games in Kansas City. A 3-and-3 road trip gets the Nationals back to face the two best teams in the NL East with the Phillies in for 4-games followed by a 3-game series against the Mets.

The Washington Nationals have put themselves in a salvage game situation as they wrap up this afternoon in Kansas City. Days like this show the importance of why you go for it aggressively as we did not see on Monday — because you don’t know what will happen in the rest of the series. Yes, you can’t play most regular season games like they are a postseason elimination games however the issue is manager Miguel Cairo shoved his starting pitcher with a 4-2 lead and with a rested bullpen went to his worst reliever after that.

The good vibes from wins on Saturday and Sunday in San Francisco were quickly erased in Kansas City. That is the ups and downs of baseball. Unfortunately for the Nats, it has been a season of 47 ups and 72 downs.

The Washington Nationals were in control last night until Miguel Cairo tried to push Cade Cavalli for more. That was such a Davey Martinez type of move that almost always backfired in more ways than one. Cavalli has shown that he just does not have the stamina to go deep in games. The 4-2 lead through 5.0 innings — should have been sufficient. Instead of pulling Cavalli at the first sign of trouble in the 6^th inning, Cairo let Cavalli self-destruct then went to the team’s worst statistical reliever and brought in Jackson Rutledge who turned it from a tie game to a 2-run deficit. When will they learn?