The Nats were shut out for the first time in the season losing 3-0 to the Phillies. The Nats batting averages are plummeting and Gio could have pitched a gem and you won’t win a game scoring zero runs.
Dusty continues with this same sleepy batting order and the Nats had opportunities and could not capitalize.
There are 4 position starters in this line-up batting well under the Mendoza line. Taylor drops to .192, Werth to .180, Espinosa .182, and Lobaton .158. Espinosa did get 1 of the 2 hits tonight and that bunt single was the 500th hit of his career.
In the bigger picture, last night was just one of those losses in a season where the Nats will lose at least 50 more games to be realistic. There is no way a baseball team will achieve a winning % like the Golden State Warriors achieved this year.
The philosophical question is, did we learn anything from last night? Max Scherzer said he did.
We can’t rewind the game and start over. There are no do overs. When Max Scherzer takes the mound in 5 days against the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday, what will he do differently? Scherzer blamed his fastball command for last night.
“Everything is not broke,” Scherzer said in his post-game interview. “This isn’t a time where you just beat everything around and throw your glove around. The pitches are there. It’s just a little fine-tuning. That’s the difference between dominance and being average at this level. It can be that fine of a difference. In Miami, my top half wasn’t finishing through the pitch, and tonight it was. So from a mechanical standpoint, my body’s working. Now I just gotta get the arm to fire through the release point and get extension towards home plate. It looks like it’s just cutting off a few inches, and those few inches matter.”
With as bad as things looked with a 2-0 lead after the 2nd batter Andres Blanco hit a home run following a 4 pitch walk to start the game, Scherzer made some in-game adjustments and with all considered, he kept his team in the game and departed with a 3-3 tie.
This takes you back to sometimes you’re not as good as you look when you’re winning and not as bad as when you’re losing. It was the rest of Scherzer’s teammates responsibility to find a way to win, and there was plenty of blame to go around. The Nats were getting on base all night. Michael Taylor was on base 3 times. Rendon 1 time. Harper 4 times. Zimmerman 1 time. Murphy 2 times. Werth 0 times. Espinosa 0 times. Lobaton 0 times. Scherzer’s 9 hole got on base 1 time which was a Scherzer single. Add that up to 12 times on base to score 3 runs means 9 men left on base with multiple chances. With those 9 men left on base, there were 7 times runners were in scoring position in those opportunities.
Ryan Zimmerman left 5 men on base. Anthony Rendon left 4 men on base. The middle of the order cannot rely on Bryce Harper to hit home runs every night. Bryce had 1 RISP spot and he singled home a run.
The Nats defense came through big all night with a great play at the plate by Zimmerman coming home on a grounder and Rendon with multiple plays including this gem: http://m.mlb.com/video/v629512083/?game_pk=447172
On another key defensive play, this is how the winning run scored as you will see the photo below. You are always taught that the best way to field a ball is to square up. Michael Taylor did not get back to the wall and square up, and he did not catch this ball. Also, Bryce Harper is nowhere to be seen as nobody was backing up Taylor as the ball came off of the wall.
Screengrab from Phillies TV feed
Now watch from the night before an almost identical play by Denard Span working the wall and how he turns before the wall to square up.
This loss can’t be put on Max Scherzer. He gutted it out, and left in a tie game. Sometimes a loss comes down to fundamentals and doing the little things.
Before last night’s game we shared this graphic on RISP hitting.
Bryce Harper was on base 4 times last night, and nobody brought him around to score a run.
Most of the questions centered around Scherzer in the post-game.
Dusty Baker was asked about Scherzer physically, “I don’t have anything to compare to…I’m relatively new here. I’ve seen [Scherzer] pitch half a dozen times.”
The Nats had plenty of chances to score tonight, and Max Scherzer’s final stat line looked better than the actual pitching performance. Scherzer gave up 3 runs over 6 innings, and the bullpen gave up 1 run on a catchable ball at the wall that Michael Taylor could not get in his glove. Sometimes that is the way it goes.
Anthony Rendon left 4 men on base and Ryan Zimmerman left 5 men on base, and that defines the problem we have seen. Michael Taylor got on base 3 of his 5 plate appearances and did his job tonight which is getting on base.
The game ended on a Bryce Harper groundout with Anthony Rendon on 1st base.
The Washington Nationals got a much needed day off yesterday, and we don’t know what walk-off hero Chris Heisey did with his day off. Bryce Harper on the other hand was visiting museums on the national mall as he was taking selfies in the Smithsonian. Today’s starting pitcher Max Scherzer was uploading video and photos from one of his diving expeditions and Dusty as we know was on the radio doing what Dusty likes to do: Talking Nats.
Tonight’s 7:05pm match-up features Cy Young winner Max Scherzer and 23 year old righty pitcher Vincent Velasquez who was a 2nd round pick of the Houston Astros and was traded in the Ken Giles deal in the off-season. This will be Velasquez’s 11th career start. He has upgraded his fastball to average 95mph and can dial that up to 98. That is his main pitch and will throw a slow curve at 80mph and will throw a few sliders and changeups.
Scherzer has to get back on track tonight and also remember that 10 days ago Scherzer pitched 5 hit baseball giving up 1 run to the Phillies in an 8-1 win. Continue reading →
Fans of the Washington Nationals baseball team probably don’t know what Ninotch (pronounced ˈnē-nōtCH) is or who Tatiana Tchamouroff is and why both names are mentioned in the same sentence with the Washington Nationals. Tatiana Tchamouroff’s name sounds regal and very Russian, and she can certainly speak Spanish which Jesus Flores appreciated as he explained to her in Spanish that he had pain in his shoulder. Tchamouroff’s father was of Bulgarian heritage and her mother El Salvadoran which is how she was fluent in Spanish. She is a mix of American sugar and spice, and Salvadoran azúcar and Bulgarian chubritsa.
What does Tatiana Tchamouroff and Jesus Flores’ shoulder have to do with each other? Tchamouroff was interviewing for the massage therapist position for the 2008 season with the Washington Nationals when Flores was introduced to her as a test case. During Tatiana’s interview process, she had 11 players she had to massage, and was judged on that. Tatiana was also able to translate for other players where the aches and pains were so she could relay that information in English to the medical staff. The fact that Tchamouroff could speak Spanish was a distinct advantage in a locker room filled with many Spanish speaking players.
It was a lengthy interview process in which former head trainer Lee Kuntz called her with the good news that she got the job she so badly wanted and deserved in a position in the sports world dominated by men. She would remain in that job through the 2012 season in which she saw some of the toughest years in Nats history to the best year in Washington Nationals history in 2012. While Tchamouroff isn’t an employee of the Nats today, she still is tied to several players and ex-players and other professional athletes.
MLB Network Radio on Sirius/XM had Dusty Baker on as he was making his rounds today after the Washington Nationals dramatic 16 inning win yesterday. Earlier, Dusty Baker called Ben Revere his “igniter” and said Bryce Harper “doesn’t lack confidence” and “Mike Maddux has made a big impact on our entire pitching staff” andthe 14-4 Nats worked hard to get to this day off.
Here is my transcription of the interview:
CASEY: Here is our good friend, Dusty Baker. Dusty, [it’s] Casey Stern [with] Brad Lidge. What’s going on, buddy? How are we, Bake?
DUSTY: Hey. All right. We’re about to play Brad Lidge’s old team, the Phillies, tomorrow. Hey, Brad, what’s going on?
LIDGE: Not a lot, Dusty. It’s great to have you. And, yes, good luck to you against those guys. The Phillies are doing a little bit better, but good luck to you, nonetheless.
DUSTY: Well, thank you. Thank you.
LIDGE: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, listen — yeah, it’s just great to have you with us because — I mean, obviously, there’s a lot of story lines going on with your team right now, you being one of them, and just kind of what you’ve brought to this team.
But before we get into that, let’s just — quickly, if we can, was last night’s game one of the — kind of the craziest, you know, with drag bunts and everything else going on from Oliver Perez — one of the craziest regular season games you’ve been a part of?
DUSTY: Well, that was the craziest. I mean, we always heard about, you know, come to the ballpark and on a daily basis you’ll always see something you haven’t seen before. Well, I’ve been in this game almost 50 years, and I have not — never seen a game played like that before. I mean, it was crazy. I mean, pinch hit homers, you know, guys thought that they had the game won on the other side, and then we were down to our last out, and then the ball is thrown away, and how we won it. So it was — it was certainly crazy.
I’ll tell you one thing, we left a lot of runners on base, they left a lot of runners on base. And it was — it was gratifying to win because, you know, we’re all tired today. I was trying to imagine how the Minnesota Twins, you know, whom — I like Paul Molitor quite a bit. You know, they’ve got to play today and, fortunately, for us, we’re off.
CASEY: Dusty, I want to go back to the ninth inning, because we were talking about this to open the show — I don’t want to equate Bryce yet in his career to Barry, but I’ve got to ask you about the similarities between the two because I wouldn’t be surprised if you get into these spots again and you get, at very worst, the unintentional intentional, because there’s no way I would pitch to Bryce Harper in a situation like that. And I know Jepsen has got great stuff.
I’ve been doing so-called 18-game posts since June 2012. The idea was inspired by that MASN call-in show that Phil Wood and two other guys whose names I can never remember are on. I don’t know the name of the show either, something like “Three Old Guys Talk About the O’s, and Occasionally Mention the Nats.”
Anyway, one of the O’s experts brought up the idea of looking at the 162 game season in 18 game increments. He noted that a team that goes 10-8 in all nine increments wins 90 games, while a team that goes 8-10 wins only 72. I thought this was an interesting way to look at the season and I find it particularly useful to remember that that the difference between a playoff team and an also ran could be just two games that go the right way, or the wrong way, in each 18-game stretch.
Thus were born my 18-game posts, and I continued to do them as comments on NatsInsider, semi-religiously, over the past four years. Ghost invited me to post them here and I’m glad to have a new home for them. Here’s my recap of last season, 18 games at a time: http://www.talknats.com/2015/10/12/the-final-18-game-recap-of-2015-by-section222/
This is my first attempt at writing a sports-related piece! Hope it works for you guys!
I am a subscriber to Washingtonian, and the latest issue (May 2016) arrived in my mail today.
The new issue has a story titled “How to Be a Nats Fan.” It is not yet posted on the Washingtonian website, but I highly recommend that you grab the issue. Also has Cheap Eats – my fav — yummy!! Subscribe here: http://www.washingtonian.com/Continue reading →
This was the first walk-off HR in Chris Heisey’s career! He did it for the Nats in Spring Training one month ago, but this is the first regular season walk-off of his 54 career home runs.
This was also the 1st Nats Walk-Off of the 2016 season, and is destined for Nats Classic reruns! 6-5 win and the Nats get the 14-4 record that ties the 2012 record for best starts by a team in Nats history. The Nats got great relief pitching from Matt Belisle, Felipe Rivero, Jonathan Papelbon, Yusmeiro Petit and Oliver Perez in relief of Stephen Strasburg.
The walk-off HR by Chris Heisey was just part of the highlights which included a 9th inning game tying pinch-hit HR by Bryce Harper against closer Kevin Jepson. The game started with a lead-off HR from Matt den Dekker. Wilson Ramos with the clutch 2 run double as the Nats were behind by 3 runs. The craziest play was the bunt from Oliver Perez that got thrown away and scored Danny Espinosa to tie the game in the 15th inning at 5-5 before Heisey won it in the 16th inning.
Let’s enjoy Bryce’s HR again (and again).
And Heisey’s WO HR again (and again, and agains, and again . . .)
The Nats officially (unless they change Oliver Perez’s bunt to a single) only tallied Wilson Ramos’ double as the only hit all day with runners in scoring position. In case you lost count, the Nats were 1-16 officially and it is possible they change Perez’s bunt to a hit with an error on the Twins catcher John Ryan Murphy.
On the Bryce Harper watch, he increased his MLB leading HR count to 9 and RBIs to 23.
If you left early, you missed a classic! If you missed this story on Chris Heisey, give it a read!
