The NL East – A Review of Head-To-Head Schedules/Results

Posted on May 20, 2016 by DonH

Comparing head-to-head schedules is always a challenge. Teams, obviously don’t have the same schedules. And how do you separate the issue of whether an opponent is a good team, a bad team or an average run-of-the-mill team as they too have played different teams. Continue reading →

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Stephen Strasburg cruised and Harvey cursed as #Nats have laugher: Postgame

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Nats won the crucial first series of the season against the Mets in New York and improved to 25-16 on the season for the best start in team history.

Nobody knew which Matt Harvey would show up tonight as he has been struggling, and it was the bad Harvey. He gave up a 2-run HR in the 1st inning to his ex-teammate Daniel Murphy on an 0-2 pitch. The wheels came off the bus in the 3rd inning for Harvey with bases loaded as Ryan Zimmerman hit a possible 6-4-3 doubleplay ball to Asdrubal Cabrera and he booted it and Harvey fell apart and the Nats pounced for 7 more runs knocking out Harvey in his shortest outing of his career at 2 2/3 innings.

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Game #41 Rubber game of this series Strasburg/Harvey: Game Thread

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

As we discussed yesterday, the Washington Nationals were at the quarter pole of the season, and with the win in last night’s game the team’s 24-16 record is the best 40 game start in Nationals’ history.

The Nationals are guaranteed to remain in 1st place in the NL East even after today’s games. As of this morning,  the NL East boasts the best top 4 teams in combined records in baseball with a combined total of 91 wins as the vaunted NL Central with the Cubs has 87 wins for their top 4 teams and are the only division with 4 teams with 20 or more wins.
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Is it the teacher or the student? That is the question. #Nats offense

Posted on May 19, 2016 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Washington Nationals added Jacque Jones to the mix of batting coaches as an assistant to Rick Schu, and the team has Dusty Baker who is also very involved with the batters. That was evident in spring training.

There is a huge disparity between Daniel Murphy batting near the Ted Williams stripe and Danny Espinosa near the Mendoza ledge.

laura Dusty & Ramos

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Felipe Rivero stomped on the brakes and the Nats bats got 7: Postgame

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

There is that old saying that no lead is safe, and Dusty Baker gave Gio Gonzalez some rope, and he almost hung himself. Gio was nails for the first 6 inning, and then hit the wall quickly and loaded the bases with a 5-1 lead. Dusty Baker brought in Felipe Rivero as his relief pitcher as a strategic choice as he had the righty Shawn Kelley warming also which did not give Terry Collins beforehand a clue to who would relieve Gio.

Dusty knew Collins’ bench was mostly key lefty bats (Conforto, DeAza, Duda) plus his backup catcher and a weak hitting righty named Reynolds. Collins inserted the righty Reynolds as a pinch-hitter and Felipe Rivero got a comebacker for the 2nd out of the inning throwing home for the force play and no run scored, and then Terry Collins went to Michael Conforto with 2 outs and bases loaded as his pinch-hitter and Conforto who is in the upper 1oo’s in batting average against lefties grounded to 1st and as Rivero covered 1st base to cover the relay toss from Ryan Zimmerman, Rivero stomped on that bag for the 3rd out in the 7th.  Any potential comeback from the Mets was snuffed out there with no runs scoring from a bases loaded situation. Continue reading →

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Game 40: The 40th game is the 1/4 point of the season. Big game implications tonight: Game Thread

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Nationals and Mets have another game tonight in this battle of the NL East and each team is trying to show their strengths while the other team exposes their weaknesses. Last night was an old-fashioned pitchers duel that the Mets came up on the right side of.

The Nationals had a few opportunities to make things happen last night and failed. We want to illustrate one of the biggest moments and opportunities in the game. Continue reading →

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The star of Section 105, Jayson Werth has a big birthday on Friday

Posted on May 18, 2016 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
I wrote a shorter version on my MASN column on Tuesday and some have asked for the full piece as I am limited on space on that site:

There is this player in Nats Park who has a cheering section out there in the unheralded part of the park tucked in between the foul-pole and the visitor’s bullpen in Section 105 in Nationals Park. That’s right, it’s in leftfield where the man they call out to there has numerous nicknames like “The Beard” and “The Werewolf” and some just refer to him as “JDub” as Bryce likes to call him and others rib him with calls of “Grandpa”, and the man with the big beard calls leftfield his position.

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The Mets take the 1st one. Nats fall 2-0 on 2 solo HRs: Postgame

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Nats lost this game in a true pitcher’s duel by a final score of 2-0 as the Nats actually out-hit the Mets 5 to 4, and the difference was that 2 of the Mets 4 hits were solo HRs.

The Nats plan called for small ball, and they had their chances. The Nats best chance in the game was wiped out in the 2nd inning on a 4-6-3 doubleplay ball with men on the corners and 1 out. That was the Nats best chance of the night to try for the hit and run or run and hit or straight steal with Rendon on 1st base as Syndergaard is considered the easiest pitcher to steal on. Ben Revere did attempt a steal later in the game and was called out on a bang bang play.

Curtis Granderson ambushed a fastball he pulled off Max Scherzer on his 1st pitch of the game for a home run and that was all Noah Syndergaard needed in run support. Two innings later Michael Conforto hit out a mistake pitch for the final tally in a 2-0 game.

Syndergaard was as advertised. Absolutely filthy with his repertoire that begins with a 97 to 100 mph heater with a slider and changeup that stayed out of the zone for swing and miss pitches. He made few mistakes and was deadly in 2 strike counts.

It was a cleanly played game and the homeplate ump Mr. Joyce was flawless. The Nats problem was swinging on pitches out of the zone.

In a key Harper AB with Werth on 1st with 2 outs, Ray Knight said that pitch #4 to Bryce Harper was out of the strikezone on the 3-0 pitch and it was not:
syndergaard on harper

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Game #39 Nats return to CitiField and Scherzer returns to the scene of NH#2

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

The Nationals meet the Mets for their first head-to-head games of the season, and tonight is a heavyweight bout between Max Scherzer and Noah Syndergaard. This game will also be a second chance for Dusty Baker to out-manage the person in the opposite dugout as Joe Maddon pulled and pushed all the right buttons in Chicago 2 weekends ago. As we saw last year, Terry Collins played each Nats game like it was a playoff game. The atmosphere will be electric. Here’s hoping Dusty Baker will be victorious!

The last time Max Scherzer pitched in CitiField, he pitched his 2nd career no-hitter:
wilson ramos getty

The last time, Syndergaard pitched against the Giants, which was 2 weeks ago, he experienced pain in his throwing arm. He had an MRI and it showed no structural damage.

Syndergaard’s velocity has fluctuated, and there is no telling if he is still feeling pain. Syndergaard gave up 2 HRs in his last start versus the Dodgers and 2 earned in the start before that, and 4 earned in 5 2/3rds against the Giants.

Syndergaard will get his strikeouts, but he will also make mistake pitches and if you can barrel them up, he is supplying the power in an E=MC² type of way.

Here are the Nats stats against Syndergaard:

Here are Max Scherzer’s stats against the Mets:

Lineups (subject to change without notice):

  1. Ben Revere CF
  2. Jayson Werth LF
  3. Bryce Harper RF
  4. Daniel Murphy 2B
  5. Ryan Zimmerman 1B
  6. Anthony Rendon 3B
  7. Wilson Ramos C
  8. Danny Espinosa SS
  9. Max Scherzer RHP
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Bryce Harper: Man of the people. Campaign slogan: Make Baseball Fun Again (MBFA 2016)

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears

Bryce Harper has been making the rounds lately, and in the past week has been seen shooting Under Armour commercials out in the Double-A stadium in Bowie Maryland to appearing on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon while literally rubbing elbows with a Victoria Secret super model Gigi Hadid to appearing on ESPN’s media and advertiser’s showcase this morning, Bryce has been a busy man.

Bryce has already appeared as a model himself with Nina Agdal in a New Era advertisement and commercial so take that Gigi “Super Model” Hadid.

Bryce played a game of  Catchphrase with  Fallon as his teammate as they went up against the duo of model Gigi Hadid and actor/comedian Andy Samberg. Bryce had words and phrases like “Eager Beaver” and Craig Stammen‘s “Eye of the Tiger” and “S’mores” “Bubble Wrap” which is perfect for wrapping trophies, and let’s just say Bryce batted about .200 in that game per the rules and maybe .800 since no umpire called him out, and he hit a Home Run for entertaining everyone.

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