Soto pitching; Photo by Craig Nedrow for TalkNats
Yes, the Nats 3-game winning streak came to an end, but the big story is what happened to Max Scherzer to cause him to exit after one inning? Scherzer says it was a tweaked hammy that took him out of the game. Juan Soto returned and quickly got an RBI double in the first inning, and the Nats were shutout after that in a 3-1 loss. Add to the woes, Sean Doolittle still has not found his velo as he topped out at 91.2 mph and gave up another run before he was pulled after just 1/3 of an inning. Doo still is not locating his pitches as his mechanics are off in addition to the drop-off in his velo.
Max says he really isn’t concerned about it and considers it a minor injury. https://t.co/dRMrXWzfMw
— Talk Nats ⚾ (@TalkNats2) August 6, 2020
“The smart decision was to just come out of the game,” Scherzer said. “I couldn’t 100 percent power through on my right leg. This injury, uh ailment, wasn’t going to get any better so we made a decision to come out of the game. This was just enough that I couldn’t get into my drive leg. It started to affect my mechanics. The best decision was to come out of the game.”
This game just seemed to have lost all of the energy after Scherzer exited. The offense basically went flat and the Nats made the struggling Rick Porcello look like he was a Cy again.
Another positive was how good Kyle Finnegan looking in 1 2/3 innings of work with a perfect night. Wander Suero made his 2020 debut and was helped by his defense to work around one hit as he also needs to get his velo and mechanics back.
The Nats have a scheduled day-off tomorrow, and they drop to a 4-5 record on the season. Next up is Anibal Sanchez against the Baltimore Orioles on Friday night.
