Baseball gives some players multiple chances to make their own history. We saw it with Gio Gonzalez last night as he was 3 outs away from a no-hitter. Gonzalez has teammates with no-hit pedigrees. Edwin Jackson has one and Max Scherzer has two on his resumé. Max Scherzer had a chance on June 21st against the Marlins to join one of the most elite group of pitchers who have thrown 3 or more no-hitters, and he came so close on that day. That modern no-hitter club consists of 4 names: Nolan Ryan (7), Sandy Koufax (4), Bob Feller (3), and Cy Young (3), and they are all Hall of Famers and pitching legends.
Tonight, Scherzer will be on that same mound again as he was on June 21st. He will have a different cast of players behind him and a familiar player catching him. Scherzer has the same approach every game to dominate the other team, and his stuff is usually good enough to limit the other team’s offense.
The #Nats' moves may not have generated headlines like #Dodgers/#Yankees, but 3-headed monster in pen w Doolittle,Madson,Brandon Kintzler.
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) August 1, 2017
We are waiting to see if new acquisition Brandon Kintzler has made it to Miami as he is not listed on the initial line-up card which still has time to be changed. There is a major tropical storm over south Florida now that has delayed flights for hours. It kind of stinks when you have to spend your birthday on a long flight across the country and be delayed. Anyway, a happy birthday to Brandon Kintzler.
"Nice job by Mike Rizzo giving Dusty Baker serious weapons." – @markdero7 on the new-look @Nationals bullpen #MLBCentral pic.twitter.com/4tFRFSWJu7
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) August 1, 2017
Dusty Baker has done some fine tuning of his line-up order today. Howie Kendrick is in the 2-hole and Wilmer Difo leads off with Brian Goodwin moved to the back of the order and batting 8th. The issue with Difo leading off is that he has been swinging at a lot of 1st pitches lately as he did that in his first two at-bats yesterday with two one-pitch at-bats. Difo has certainly led-off before, but Dusty Baker normally doesn’t change his line-ups drastically that have produced multiple wins as the Goodwin-to-Difo-to-Harper was 14-1 in wins.
Here's how we're lining up this Scherzday. pic.twitter.com/8PdZXDrha1
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) August 1, 2017
