The Nats lost this game 11-8 but they showed their is a lot of fight in this dog. Stephen Strasburg went 6 innings and looked better than his 6.00 ERA as he got a no-decision as his offense bailed him out. It was the bullpen who looked shaky just like they did in Spring Training. It was Trevor Rosenthal who gave up 4-runs and took the loss, and Matt Adams almost bailed him out with a bases loaded pinch-hit flyball literally caught off the wall in the right-field gap. After the Mets took an 11-4 lead the Nats battled back to make the score 11-8. Unfortunately the end result is the Nats are 0-2 on the season.
We saw a much better job of managing by Dave Martinez who yanked the struggling Brian Dozier to go to Matt Adams for that pinch-hit opportunity, and Davey had short hooks for his relievers too. Unfortunately could not retire a batter and Wander Suero looked like he did in Spring Training which would not be described as “nails”.
“[Rosenthal] couldn’t get the ball down. Everything was up,” Martinez said. “I know he touched 100 but location is more important.”
As we always say velo is great but 97 down the middle can be hit by Major Leaguers if the ball is straight. We can see where the weak links are on this team. Will these guys show improvement with adjustments? It’s a game of adjustments.
