Dusty Baker is allowing his players to arrive later this morning if they don’t need treatments, and you hope each Nats player could squeeze in near 8 hours of sound sleep. It helps when you come off of a win. In Game 1 of the doubleheader, the Marlins send lefty Justin Nicolino to the mound while the Nats have this guy named Stephen Strasburg.
Dusty Baker will also be creative with his line-up and we wonder if today is the day that Bryce Harper decides to serve his 1 day suspension or test his fate and possibly get suspended next week and have to serve it in the Mets series. It might make sense for Bryce to serve his suspension against the lefty Justin Nicolino even though he is 2-3 lifetime against him. Bryce might want to play tonight against rookie call-up righty Kendry Flores or maybe Bryce just plays both games!
As we reported last night, both Trevor Gott and Matt den Dekker are in DC and Dusty Baker has already named den Dekker as his 26th man. Trevor Gott will hang out as you never know what can happen.
We expect Wilson Ramos to start game 1, and we will see which bench players get the start in Game 1 and then Game 2.
Last night’s game was won by 3 RBIs off of 2 HRs by the bench players. Stephen Drew got his 1st pinch-hit of the season and it was huge as it was a 6th inning game tying 2-run HR. In the 8th inning, Chris Heisey crushed a solo pinch-hit HR as the final tally on the night at a 5-3 score.
The Nats bench guys need a catchy name as Goon Squad II isn’t exactly original, but that’s all we have. Only the St. Louis Cardinals rank higher as a pinch-hit group this season.
Here are the Nats stats against Nicolino:
Here are Stephen Strasburg’s stats against the Marlins:
Line-ups (subject to change without notice):
- Michael Taylor CF
- Anthony Rendon 3B
- Bryce Harper RF
- Daniel Murphy 2B
- Ryan Zimmerman 1B
- Jayson Werth LF
- Wilson Ramos C
- Danny Espinosa SS
- Stephen Strasburg RHP
