The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

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.

CJ Abrams goes airborne to score the winning run; Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats

The Washington Nationals have Brad Lord on the mound, and the Nats could really use a win from this starter to keep the positivity flowing forward from last night’s walk-off win.

The Washington Nationals and the NY Mets have identical records on runs scored this season, and the Mets are winning with exceptional starting pitching that is ranked best in the league. The Nats starting pitching is not too far behind. To beat the Mets, the Nats pitching has to be better.

The Washington Nationals won the first two games of this series against Baltimore to take their record to 11-13. This series wraps up tonight against the Orioles. A key is for the Nationals who must go 5-2 or better to finish with a winning record on April 30 — something that manager Dave Martinez has not been able to do in his managerial career that began with the Nats in the 2018 season.

The Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles have even more competition today from the Washington Capitals who are in playoff hockey just up the street. Last night, there was just under 30,000 in paid attendance to watch the Nats dominate in a 7-0 1-hit win with 8.0 strong innings from Mitchell Parker.