Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats
The Washington Nationals wrap up their first series of the season with the Mets, and the winner of this game gets the bragging rights for the first series. The NL East is separated by only 1.0 game of 1st Place for each team. Another fact, the Miami Marlins are the only team in the NL East with a positive run differential. In 2019, the Nats were 9-10 at this point in that season. The Nats enter this game at 8-10. While the Mets are healthy except for Noah Syndergaard, the Nats are missing several key players like Juan Soto, Stephen Strasburg, Jon Lester, Will Harris, and Wander Suero.
For this game, the Nats send Patrick Corbin to the mound after his great bounceback performance fives days ago. The Mets counter with Taijuan Walker. The Nats don’t have a lot of history against the righty Walker, and he has a 0-1 record with a 3.21 ERA on the season.
Manager Dave Martinez will go with his same lineup as he wrote up yesterday 1-6 and will add Yan Gomes at catcher and Victor Robles back to centerfield. The Mets will sit lefties Dominic Smith and Jeff McNeil for this one.
Next weekend will create new opportunities in the NL East as the Phillies and Mets will square off against each other. Chances are the landscape in the NL East will look very different, week by week or as some say weak by weak. It is survival of the fittest, and hopefully by next weekend the Nats will get back some of their star players. Soto hit off of a tee yesterday and should could go down to the Alternate Training Site mid-week to face some live pitching.
Washington Nationals vs. New York Mets
Stadium: CitiField, Queens, New York
1st Pitch: 1:10 pm EDT
TV: MASN, SNY , MLB.TV
Nats Radio: 106.7 FM The Fan; SiriusXM® ( Streaming Internet 869)
Line-ups subject to change without notice:
1. Josh Harrison 2B (R)
2. Yadiel Hernandez RF (L)
3. Trea Turner SS (R)
4. Josh Bell 1B (S)
5. Kyle Schwarber LF (L)
6. Starlin Castro 3B (R)
7. Yan Gomes C (R)
8. Victor Robles CF (R)
9. Patrick Corbin LHP (L)
