After last night’s win, the Nationals can even up this series 2-to-2 if the Nats can tally up a win today in Milwaukee before the team flies to Miami. With EJax on the mound, he will have a chance to make a statement against a potential playoff team that he deserves a spot on the Nationals post-season roster.
Matt Garza will not start this game against the Nationals as his manager Craig Counsell most likely was concerned about his pitcher’s August ERA which was 7.67 and a 1.963 WHIP. Instead, Counsell will turn to Brent Suter, who is no relation to hockey legend Brent Sutter, but is a hockey fan and attended Harvard University which is known more for their hockey than baseball. Counsell seems to be ready to use his September expanded roster to turn this into a bullpen type of game if Suter can’t go far into the game.
“[Suter has] pitched once in the last couple of weeks, so we’re not going to get deep into the game with him,” Brewers’ manager Craig Counsell said. “We’ll just kind of read the situation and see where he’s at.”
The Nats not only have their injured players they want to get back like Bryce Harper, but they also want their hot hitting All-Star Daniel Murphy back — to form. Daniel Murphy is slashing a poor .222/.321/.306/.627 in the last month. In the past few games, you could see Murphy is swinging at balls over his shoulders and on Friday night Murphy struck-out on a pitch almost a foot above the strike zone.
While Murphy got a seeing eye soft liner single yesterday through the infield, he inexplicably tried to leg it into a double and was tagged out hurdling the middle infielder before reaching the base. What was he thinking? What was he doing? Where was he going? There were no outs in a 0-to-0 game.
Dusty Baker was trying to play Murphy every game to get him out of this funk, but maybe the answer is rest. Not only has he struggled at the plate and had that baserunning blunder, he also couldn’t field a chopper yesterday that also handcuffed Jayson Werth for the go-ahead run at the time yesterday.
“The problem is [Murphy is] just chasing bad pitches,” Baker said. “Sometimes you sit your way out of it, but most of your time you hit your way out of it.”
Whatever the formula is, it is time to figure it out and find the “good” Daniel Murphy soon because there are only 26-games remaining in the regular season.
Washington Nationals vs. Milwaukee Brewers
Stadium: Miller Park
1st Pitch: 2:10 pm EDT
TV: MASN2, WUSA-9, Fox Sports – Wisconsin, MLB.TV
Nats Radio: 106.7 FM The Fan; SiriusXM® (Internet 869)
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
Here's how we're lining up for afternoon ⚾️. pic.twitter.com/byAKGu46vw
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) September 3, 2017
