Jayson Werth was the offensive star of Sunday’s come-from-behind win with a 2 run HR and a RBI double. Werth finished the game at a .209 Batting Average and distancing himself from that late season lowpoint .184 BA on August 16th. That’s a rise of 25 pts in exactly 2 weeks. Can Jayson Werth keep this going? If he does, he will raise his OBP over .300 and get back to respectability.
Another #CurlyW for the books! And a fourth straight #SeriesW! pic.twitter.com/mQHAk1Z3Oa
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) August 30, 2015
This wouldn’t be the first time analysts and fans have counted Jayson out. At 36 1/4 years of age, you factor in Jayson’s early season DL stint to recover from shoulder surgery and then the broken wrist as reasons to think he can’t come back and help this team. Then you see his tired legs and watching him in between pitches when you’re at the ballpark stretching his legs, and the thoughts are he’s a liability. If you can remember those defensive mishaps on August 21st in which neither were ruled errors, you wonder if he can play league average leftfield again, and it looks like he can. His arm even appears to have improved.
We like to go back to this great Twain quote to parallel Jayson Werth and any exaggeration of his demise:
Mark Twain once wrote, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
When Denard Span was coming back off the DL, we posted a poll to see who thought Werth should continue starting versus Michael A. Taylor. Most people felt Jayson Werth had shown some improvement and while skeptical, Werth deserved to start in LF for a variety of reasons.
If Michael A. Taylor was playing LF, he would most likely rate as the #1 defensive outfielder versus Werth who is only rated above Hanley Ramirez as the worst LF in baseball. Veteran leadership is good to have on the field and Werth’s ability to see a lot of pitches per at-bat in addition to situational hitting were seen as an advantage of putting Werth in as the leftfielder.
It looks like Matt Williams made the right choice with Jayson Werth over Michael A. Taylor, but with the season ending hip injury to Denard Span, it became a non-issue as both Werth and Taylor will start the rest of the way.
Sunday was also supposed to be Jayson Werth bobblehead day to celebrate his Game 4 Walkoff, but the bobblehead was so bad that it was cancelled and fans were given a voucher for a new bobblehead when it is available.
From the @Nationals – a sneak peak at the Jayson Werth WalkOff Bobblehead – that giveaway is Sunday, 8/30. #nats pic.twitter.com/wl0qcLJOKl
— Alex Parker (@ParkerSports) August 20, 2015
With 33 games to go, Jayson Werth as the lead-off hitter will be an on-going story to watch and analyze and right now it appears that Jayson Werth is in mid-season form.
