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The Washington Nationals fell flat in another first game of a series last night with a record of 5-6 in first games of series. Sure, they were facing Cincinnati’s best pitcher, and the Nats best pitcher, Mitchell Parker, based on ERA, fell flat for his second game in a row following that outing when he went 8.0 full innings.

The Washington Nationals arrived in Cincinnati just before 1AM last night after a late game in Philadelphia. The players got to bed just after 2AM, and now are sitting through a lengthy rain delay. In fact the entire weekend calls for a lot of rain. Tonight matches up the Reds ace, Hunter Greene, and the Nats top ERA pitcher, Mitchell Parker.

The Washington Nationals had a golden opportunity to notch their biggest road win of the season in the first game of this Phillies series and failed to hold their lead in the 9th inning. Kind of sounds like Opening Day. Just like the opening series, the Nationals will try to salvage a game in the series prior to heading on their charter jet to Cincinnati after midnight.

The Washington Nationals had a golden opportunity to notch their biggest road win of the season last night, but they failed to execute on a few pitches in the 9th inning that put the tying and winning run on the bases. All of that could have been righted with 2 outs when outfielder Dylan Crews threw a bullet to catcher Keibert Ruiz that was not caught at the plate — moments later the Phillies walked-off on the Nats via wild pitch.

When you hear that a team is at their 30th game, you know that you are approaching that 20 percent mark in the season. That is when sample sizes are getting large enough to do some meaningful analysis.

The Washington Nationals will not be able to get to April 30th with a winning record. In fact, that continues to add to manager Dave Martinez‘s record of never having a winning record on April 30 in his 8-season tenure with the team. Having a losing record on April 30 isn’t a death knell as we saw Martinez’s 2018 team finished with a winning record — and his 2019 team won the World Series — but it does put you behind the 8-Ball to play catch up.

The Washington Nationals have been getting exceptional starting pitching for most of the season. The starting pitching ERA is the 5th best in all of baseball with a 3.44 ERA. But the Nats offense is not getting the job done in games when the bullpen is actually good — like yesterday in a 2-0 Nats loss. The combination of Josh Bell, Nathaniel Lowe, and Keibert Ruiz in the weekend part of the series were a combined 1-21.

The Washington Nationals have been getting exceptional starting pitching for most of the season. The starting pitching ERA is the 5th best in all of baseball with a 3.44 ERA. But the Nats offense is not getting the job done in games when the bullpen is actually good — like yesterday in a 2-0 Nats loss. The combination of Josh Bell, Nathaniel Lowe, and Keibert Ruiz in the first two games of this series are a combined 0-22.