Photo by Stan4Nats for TalkNats.com
While south Florida is bracing for Hurricane Irma, Hialeah’s own, Gio Gonzalez, will start the final game of the season between the Nationals and Marlins in Miami. Usually the Gio Gonzalez fans are out in large numbers when Gio pitches in Miami, and with the sparse crowds expected for this finale, the Gio fans could be the majority tonight.
Tonight’s game is extremely important to Gio Gonzalez for many reasons and chief among them is that he is trying to pitch his team into the post-season, but also Gio needs to bounce back from his poor performance 6-days ago when he gave up 5-runs to the Brewers over 6-innings on 115 pitches. A week ago there was the Cy Young talk in the National League shifting some favor to Gio Gonzalez, and after giving up the 5 earned runs it pushed his ERA up 18 points. Yes, Gio’s ERA is excellent but Gio might need to be the best to have a chance of winning the award. Yes, the odds are against Gio as they were against Kyle Hendricks last year who also didn’t win the Cy Young award when he led the NL in ERA at 2.13 while Max Scherzer was 8th at 2.96 and actually won the award. WAR, K/9, I/G, WHIP, and reputation still are all factors in the voting aside from ERA.
The Marlins will start lefty Dillon Peters who is a recent call-up and ranked as Miami’s #4 prospect per MLBPipeline.com. The 25-years-old threw a shutout in his debut and held the Phillies to just 3 hits over 7.0 innings of no-run baseball with 8 strikeouts, but got a no-decision for all of his hard work.
The Nationals will rest Daniel Murphy tonight and also Matt Wieters will get another day off. Jose Lobaton will get to catch tonight and you can be sure he heard all the praise that Dusty Baker gave Pedro Severino last night in the post-game media session when Baker said Severino along with Stephen Strasburg were his co-players of the game and continued to compliment Severino. Nothing much has seemed to get the light-hitting Lobaton going, and this might have been a strategy by Dusty Baker. Of the 63 catchers appearing in at least 25 games, the .148 batting Lobaton ranks second to last.
In other news, it sounds like Koda Glover‘s season is over. Glover as we reported went to Texas to get a second opinion on his shoulder. Details could be available at a later time. Suffice it to say that Glover was still experiencing pain during his rehab at the West Palm Beach facility. In better news, Max Scherzer did throw his bullpen session earlier today to prepare for his scheduled start on Friday at Nats Park against the Phillies.
Washington Nationals vs. Miami Marlins
Stadium: Marlins Park
1st Pitch: 7:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN2, Fox Sports – Florida, MLB.TV
Nats Radio: 106.7 FM The Fan; SiriusXM® (Internet 869)
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
Going for the sweep tonight. pic.twitter.com/aOdyh2j576
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) September 6, 2017
