There is no telling what Dusty Baker is thinking for today’s line-up beyond Gio Gonzalez starting. We hear that Wilmer Difo could be activated today, and awaiting word on Stephen Drew.
Dusty Baker rested five positional starters yesterday, and only Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon, and Danny Espinosa made it into the starting line-up. Trea Turner quite possibly had the best game of his career yesterday coming a triple short of hitting for the baseball cycle while accumulating 3 RBIs, and going 3-4 with 2 hits with runners in scoring position.
The Braves starting pitcher is right-hander Williams Perez who returns from the disabled list after recovering from the strained rotator cuff , and he last pitched in the Majors on June 6th.
According to Baseball-Reference.com’s WAR calculations, Trea Turner has passed Bryce Harper in Wins Above Replacement, and Anthony Rendon has passed Daniel Murphy. Fangraphs.com has Daniel Murphy (+4.8 WAR) as the most valuable position player on the Nats followed by Anthony Rendon, Bryce Harper, Wilson Ramos, and Trea Turner. Turner is at a +2.8 WAR on Baseball-Reference.com’s calculation and +2.3 WAR on Fangraphs.com.
Keep in mind that WAR is cumulative. A player that has started 135 games this season should technically have a higher WAR than Turner’s 45. Simply multiply Trea’s numbers by 3 and you get some eye-popping MVP types of numbers.
Trea Turner now has 36 runs scored and driven in 25 RBIs on the season, and he has only started 45 games.
This is the full Daniel Murphy podcast with Buster Olney and Jessica Mendoza that you can listen to on this link here.
Washington Nationals and Atlanta Braves
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 7:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN2, FOX Southeast, MLB.TV
Line-ups (subject to change without notice):
- Trea Turner CF
- Jayson Werth LF
- Daniel Murphy 2B
- Bryce Harper RF
- Anthony Rendon 3B
- Wilson Ramos C
- Ryan Zimmerman 1B
- Danny Espinosa SS
- Gio Gonzalez LHP
