The Nats were behind 5-3 in the 8th inning and had Daniel Murphy on 3rd and Wilson Ramos on 2nd with no outs. Ryan Zimmerman stepped in against the pitcher and struck out looking. Anthony Rendon walked to load the bases. Danny Espinosa then struck out, and with 2 outs Clint Robinson popped out.
Dusty had Jayson Werth, Chris Heisey, Stephen Drew and Clint Robinson all available when Zimmerman’s spot came up in the 8th inning. Here was the chart of what Zimmerman saw. Pitch #8 for the strikeout was right down the middle.
The question is why didn’t Dusty pinch-hit for Ryan Zimmerman who is 4-40 with RISP since the Chicago series and .167 overall. The stats speak to the problem. You cannot keep relying on Murphy and Ramos for most of the offense.
The umpire had a ridiculous strike zone, and a manager has to stand up for his players. You could see the frustration and just about every Nationals player was victimized. It also created at the worse time for Nats hitters to expand their zone.
Here you will see in the 9th inning in a 1-0 count Jeffress throws a pitch inches inside to Ramos that was called a strike. It shouldn’t have been, clearly. Ramos sees one coming to the same spot and had to swing. The count should have been 3-0.
As the MASN cameras showed Dusty after poor strike calls, Dusty had a frown but his mouth was closed. The umpire took advantage of the Nationals and that was clear.
Here is Zach Davies chart. He had both sides of the plate.
Max Scherzer just was not good tonight. He gave up 2 HRs and a 2 run single. The 5 earned runs were all the Brewers needed.
Dusty started Michael Taylor in this game which is after he had just struck out 5 times in his last game with a costly error. Taylor got 1 single but struck out 3 times tonight.
