Photo by Kevin Nibley for TalkNats
The Washington Nationals take on the Mets today for a late afternoon game after the teams battled last night for 11 innings. Both teams were playing with short benches last night, and it was the Nationals who used Trea Turner off their bench for the game-winning RBI which Turner pushed across via a bases loaded walk against Jeurys Familia.
The Mets have now played in 3 extra innings games since April 13th. Those games included a 16 inning tussle which has taxed the Mets bullpen. Since Familia’s reinstatement from the suspension list, he has thrown a total of 48 pitches and walked 4 batters in 1 2/3 innings.
It is hard to gauge who the Mets’ manager will use the rest of the weekend in relief. For the Nationals, the bullpen should be relatively fresh except for Oliver Perez and Shawn Kelley who have both pitched the last 2 nights. Joe Blanton and Enny Romero each pitched an inning last night and could be available if needed. Dusty Baker had Blake Treinen warming last night to enter the game in the 11th inning if the Nationals did not take the lead. Koda Glover and Matt Albers were the only pitchers who did not warm-up last night.
The Nationals will start Gio Gonzalez this afternoon with a reworked line-up that has Trea Turner starting and Jayson Werth resting. This will also be the first time that Adam Eaton will lead-off with Trea Turner batting right behind him. Another change for this line-up is moving Ryan Zimmerman to the clean-up spot after Bryce Harper which pushes Daniel Murphy back to the #5 spot in the batting order.
Here are the stats against Jacob deGrom if he does in fact start today for the Mets:
The tarp went on the field in CitiField during batting practice and it is lightly raining. The weather forecast calls for intensifying showers and 56°F. The rain should move out of the area between 4pm and 6:30pm which puts an on-time first pitch at 4:05pm in jeopardy.
This is another game you should not expect Jayson Werth to play in. Dusty Baker believes Werth will be available tomorrow to play.
This entire series will be available to a nationals audience except where blacked-out. Last night, the MLB Network televised the game. Today, the game will be broadcasted on FOX via the FS1 cable channel. Tomorrow night’s game is the Sunday ESPN game of the week.
Washington Nationals at New York Mets
Stadium: CitiField, Queens, New York
1st Pitch: 4:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN, SNY, MLB.TV
Line-ups (subject to change without notice):
- Adam Eaton LF
- Trea Turner SS
- Bryce Harper RF
- Ryan Zimmerman 1B
- Daniel Murphy 2B
- Anthony Rendon 3B
- Matt Wieters C
- Michael Taylor CF
- Gio Gonzalez LHP
