You just never know what manager Dave Martinez‘s sleepless nights are like as he spoke last night about how he would not sleep well as he tried to get Mark Reynolds into today’s line-up. He found a way. Reynolds will start at 3rd base. Martinez found a way to get the smoldering hot bench player another start. No word yet how well Davey slept last night. Reynolds made it clear that he was going to sleep well.
“Had to sleep on that [line-up],” Martinez said. “But Anthony [Rendon] could use a day off. I told him half a day. Hopefully we don’t need him, but he will be available.”
Along with Reynolds at 3rd base, Daniel Murphy will be at 2nd base, and Matt Adams at 1st base. Trea Turner is the only 2018 regular in the infield at his shortstop spot. Since Tanner Roark is more of a pitch-to-contact pitcher, how effective will his defense be?
The outfield will be Soto, Harper, and Eaton. That makes sense to go all lefty against a struggling righty like Trevor Richards, but Eaton is back in the lead-off spot where Trea Turner has been en fuego this week. Analytics? Well, we will see. Dave Martinez might be trying to go offense versus offense today as Tanner Roark‘s 4.60 ERA is 66 points better than Trevor Richards 5.26.
This Nats line-up looks like a 2014 Orioles line-up where you can put a 4.60 ERA pitcher out there with a thumping line-up where they could win a 7-to-4 game with Ubaldo Jimenez‘s 4.81 ERA. We will see how Davey Martinez’s line-up that he penciled up as he couldn’t sleep performs.
Probably about the time the Nationals are en-route to their hotel in Pittsburgh, ESPN will be airing their All-Star selection show at 7 PM. Bryce Harper could be the only Nationals player in the starting line-up for the mid-summer classic via the fan vote. Max Scherzer will most likely be the starting pitcher chosen by the All-Star manager Dave Roberts. The question is which Nationals players will be their teammates on the roster? Trea Turner should be an All-Star by a landslide vote — but he may not make the Top 5 in the fan vote. He has a huge lead in WAR, stolen bases and runs scored for shortstops and 2nd in home runs and OBP and 3rd in RBIS, and if it wasn’t for the thin air of Colorado, Turner would lead in both power and baserunning. The other Nats’ players who should be All-Stars are Anthony Rendon and Sean Doolittle. There is also the curious case for the 19-year-old phenom Juan Soto as an All-Star with only 44-games and 175+ plate appearances on his statline.
Miami Marlins vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 1:35 pm EDT
TV: MASN; MLB app out-of-market
Nats Radio: 106.7 The Fan and via the MLB app
Line-ups subject to change without notice:
- Adam Eaton RF
- Trea Turner SS
- Juan Soto LF
- Bryce Harper CF
- Mark Reynolds 3B
- Matt Adams 1B
- Daniel Murphy 2B
- Spencer Kieboom C
- Tanner Roark RHP
