The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

The Nationals are 64-44 with a 7.0 game lead in the NL East, and a year ago at the same point the Nationals were 56-52 and -2.5 games behind in the NL East. Game #108 ended with a devastating loss a year ago as Drew Storen had a 4-1 lead and walked a batter and 2 straight singles to load the bases for Carlos Gonzalez who hit a grand slam to win the game. What a difference a year makes!

The Nationals will be playing the Giants for three game this weekend that should have the feel of post-season baseball if Bruce Bochy plays these game like he did last week in San Francisco.

Dusty Baker adjusted his pitching rotation to have Gio Gonzalez start tonight, and he will face Jeff Samardzija of the Giants. Stephen Strasburg will pitch on Saturday against Matt Cain, and Tanner Roark and Madison Bumgarner are set for Sunday.

You might recall that last week against the Nationals at AT&T Park  Samadzija took the loss in the  4-1 game. Samardzija gave up four runs on seven hits in six innings against the Nats.

Even if Ryan Zimmerman is healthy Dusty Baker could sit him as he is a career .053 batter against Jeff Samardzija in 19 at-bats. By the way, in regular season games, Hunter Pence is .059 against Gio Gonzalez in 17 at-bats.

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We had a scare in the 9th inning last night as Wilson Ramos was knocked backwards after he took a foul tip to his upper chest. It looked serious as the trainer Paul Lessard sprinted out to Ramos’ aid. It appeared after removing Ramos’ chest protector that the issue was the foul tip broke his gold chain. Dusty Baker joked after the game, “I don’t know what he was reaching for down there and pulled out some gold. Ramos has been a Godsend. He feels good about himself. I can’t imagine not having Ramos. He’s figured it out. It takes some time. I’m hoping we do something with Big Ramos here to retain him soon.”

“They have told me absolutely nothing still,” said Ramos in response to Baker’s comment. “I’d like [to stay with the Nats], but those are decisions they make … They haven’t made any calls or communicated with [my agents]. We’re still waiting.”
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The Nats face a player they are very familiar with tonight. Robbie Ray was the Nats’ 12th round draft pick out of Brentwood High School in 2010. Ray was a fast riser in the Nats system, and he became the centerpiece of the Doug Fister trade with Detroit.  The Tigers subsequently traded the lefty to the Arizona Diamondbacks as part of a three-team trade.

Robbie Ray has been inconsistent so far in his career and has struggled with command. Ray is lefty power pitcher and averages 96mph with his fastball, and he throws a reach-back heater at 98mph. His fastball will move from 92 to 98mph in a game. His secondary pitch is a slider, and he will throw a few slurves. Ray will issue walks, and give up some location mistakes that get hit far.

Tanner Roark starts for the Nationals, and Dusty Baker had this to say about him earlier, “He’s built kind of like Roger Clemens a little bit, and the guy’s got some big….you know…..guts.”

Ryan Zimmerman is out of the line-up again tonight as he nurses his injured wrist. There is still no mention of Zimmerman’s availability off of the bench. We do not know if he took batting practice, but he did take grounders at first base during BP.

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There is a game tonight which has been over-shadowed most of the day by the trade deadline which passed with the Nationals not making an acquisition for a big bat.

The prices teams paid today for players like Lucroy and Beltran was steep. Mike Rizzo could try to make a move in the waiver-claim market like he has done in the past when he got Matt Thornton. For all we know, Mike Rizzo might have a plan for Koda Glover, Reynaldo Lopez and Lucas Giolito for the September bullpen, but it is unclear what the Nats do to improve the offense unless the Nats see players like Ryan Zimmerman, Ben Revere and Bryce Harper return to their career stat-lines.

The Nationals send Stephen Strasburg to the mound tonight, and the Diamondbacks have righty Archie Bradley. The Nationals have never faced Bradley before. The scouting report on Bradley is that he is a two-pitch pitcher with a 93mph fastball and a slow curve. He throws from a high arm slot with downward tilt. When he is not locating his fastball, he is very hittable. Lefties have a .922 OPS against him, but he has dominated righties to a .194 BA.

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