Trea Turner‘s walk-off against the Mets on March 31, 2019
The season is now 25% over, but don’t fret as there is plenty of baseball ahead — and we will hope for good baseball. When a team is playing poorly, a good bobblehead will get the crowd out. Tonight is the Trea Turner bobblehead night and while Trea is not expected to play tonight for the Nationals — he is getting close to returning in a few days. Trea’s wife, Kristen Turner, will be at Section 138 tonight selling raffle tickets for the benefit of the Jimmy V. Foundation charity. Stop by and say hi to Kristen and maybe she will autograph your Trea Turner bobblehead if you buy enough raffle tickets.
At the PNats game last night, Trea Turner had a nice single and what they described as a Web Gem. In non-desperate times, Turner would probably take 3-to-4 days to rehab back to get his timing right, but with the depth on this team, Trea will be back now sooner than later.
Tonight it is the rookie right-hander Wilmer Font for the Mets, and Patrick Corbin for the Nationals on an extra day’s rest. Corbin will try to get the Nats off of this one step forward and two steps backwards dance the team is on. Corbin won the opener in Los Angeles last week to break that 1-11 record in first games of series to make it 2-11, but after last night’s loss the team is an incredulous 2-12 in opening games of series.
“ I don’t know what to make of it yet. We’re doing some analysis of it now,” general manager Mike Rizzo said on 106.7 The Fan radio said today. “First days are the busiest day for the preparation of that series. We do all of our advanced reporting, and we have all of our pitching and hitting meetings. We’re looking to streamline some of those processes and those meeting times, and do something different. It could be coincidental on who you are facing that day, and that type of thing. We’re looking into it, and see if there are any tweaks we can make in our preparation to allow us win that first game of series because if you don’t win that first game of the series it curtails your chance of winning that series.”
Rizzo admitted their was a team meeting in Milwaukee. It seemed to work for that first game in Los Angeles, but since winning the first game in Los Angeles the team is now 1-3 in the last 4 games which includes last night’s disappointing loss with poor defense and a lack of offense.
“The strikeout numbers are alarming,” Rizzo said. “We need to be a more offensive efficient team and to do the little things to score runs without relying on the home runs. We need to put the ball in play to give us a chance. We can’t count on the 3-run home run.”
That seems to sum it all up well by the general manager, but how do you improve a team where several players just swing for the fences where warning track power on a flyball is generally just an out unless it moves up a player on the bases, but strikeouts give you no chance. A single with a man on 2nd base that scores is the same number of RBIs as a solo home run. Keep that in mind. The .199 batting average for the month of May won’t cut it.
New York Mets vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 7:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN2; MLB App out-of-market
Nats Radio: 106.7 The Fan and via the MLB app
Line-ups subject to change without notice:
