The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

Unfortunately, it wasn’t hard to see this one coming. Sustained success is something that’s eluded the Nationals for the majority of this season, so the idea of sweeping the Reds seemed like a pretty high mountain to climb, despite the solid performances of the past two nights. That being said, there’s still plenty of room to complain about what we just watched because three pitchers have now thrown complete game shutouts against the Nats this season in just 102 games.

It took a little bit for the Nats to wake up in this one, as they battled the strikeout bug for the early part of this game. But once they got to Chase Burns it was all over. A strong offensive performance was backed by an excellent night from Brad Lord and the bullpen to get them through the finish line tonight.

At a certain point in tonight’s game, the Washington Nationals had a seven run lead and I found myself genuinely enjoying a Nats performance for the first time in a few weeks. Of course, the moment I said that, the Reds scored five runs and made it a close ballgame. But I should have seen that one coming.

Today was another ‘burn the tape’ day for a Nationals club that’s had way too many of them already this season. Anyone who tuned in any later than five minutes after first pitch likely never saw a close game today, as the Padres opened this game with a five-spot on MacKenzie Gore, the worst first inning of his career so far. The bats weren’t much help to him either, as the Nationals scored just seven runs in this weekend’s series across all three games. Of course, credit needs to be given to the San Diego pitching staff, but as a fan base, we have every right to be critical of such a low output, especially when it seems to be becoming the new normal.