Tanner Roark made his MLB debut on August 7 of 2013 as a bullpen arm and eventually got some starts. He dazzled us with pinpoint location on his fastball and good late movement on his slider. Roark had 5 starts in 2013 and looked like the Nats found a diamond in the rough that they polished up and had a star. He finished 2013 with a 1.51 ERA and earned a spot in the Nats “ace” 2014 starting rotation.
In 2014, Roark would pitch 198 1/3 innings and finish with an “Ace” ERA of 2.85. He would finish 10th in the league in adjusted ERA+ at 130 and was 6th in pitcher’s WAR at 5.1 and was on many other leader boards. Normally those types of stats get you some 6th to 10th place votes on the Cy Young ballot but baseball sometimes won’t take a pitcher who was once in Independent baseball and lacked the pedigree to get that type of recognition without repeating it again.
The Nats signed Max Scherzer in the winter of this season meaning unless there was a trade of Strasburg, JZim, Fister or Gio, it would be Roark who was the odd man out and that is what happened. Roark was moved to the bullpen and would move back into the 2013 role he held with the Nats which would be the “jack of all trades” and take on that Craig Stammen role of long relief, middle relief, set-up, stopper, spot starter, and why not, close a game too. Roark accepted the role as a team first guy and said all the right things when asked if he was disappointed, he would just say “I’m happy to do whatever Matt asks of me”.
Roark got mop-up 2 inning work in his 1st appearance. In his 2nd appearance in a tie game in Philly, he gave up the walk-off win. His 2nd appearance was a mop-up type of middle relief, 4th appearance he earned his 1st hold. In his 6th appearance he took his 2nd loss in a tie game gave up the winning run in the 8th inning. In his 9th appearance with a tired Drew Storen, Roark got a Save. A couple of mistake pitches didn’t doom him on that night and he finished the Save with a K of Stanton with Gordon on the basepaths. On May 25th, Roark would join the starting due to Strasburg going to the DL. Roark just has not looked like his 2013 or 2014 version.
He has struggled through almost the entire season. The pinpoint fastball command has not been there, and at times the slider doesn’t slide and gets hit far and deep as we’ve seen. By the stats, it’s not hard to see that Tanner’s ERA, WHIP and HR/9 are all bad and while some pitchers like Gio are high WHIP with respectable ERA, Tanner Roark isn’t that type.
Here’s the Prado pitch location from last night that became a 2 run HR in the 1st inning:
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