Photo by the Washington Nationals
If Jon Lester follows his pattern, he will have a good game today for the Washington Nationals. The veteran lefty has a history of bouncing back after poor performances. His team needs him to be good today and follow the lead of Stephen Strasburg after he threw 5 1/3 shutout innings yesterday to lead the Nats to a much-needed win.
For Lester, his success is based on locating his pitches with enough deception to keep the batters off-balance. He will be facing a young Orioles team that is in the middle of MLB teams with a .753 OPS against lefty pitchers this season.
The Nats will face the lefty Bruce Zimmermann, no relations to former Nats righty Jordan Zimmermann. This Zim was born in Baltimore and plays for his hometown team. He has started and done long relief. He worked out the Orioles bullpen last week with 5 2/3 innings to save their bullpen against the Yankees. His ERA this year is 4.79. The Nats are the 7th best team in the Majors against lefty pitching.
We await the news on the status of Victor Robles whose MRI was not totally clean and showed a sprain. But Robles woke up feeling better our source said. We will see what the Nats decide to do with him as far as an IL move which they could go back two days retroactively. He won’t be in the lineup today.
By the way, yesterday between the second and third innings, the season reached the 25 percent completion mark.
Baltimore Orioles vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 4:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN, MASN2, MLB.TV
Nats Radio: 106.7 FM The Fan; SiriusXM® ( Streaming Internet 869)
Line-ups subject to change without notice:
1. Trea Turner SS
2. Juan Soto RF
3. Ryan Zimmerman 1B
4. Starlin Castro 3B
5. Kyle Schwarber LF
6. Josh Harrison CF
7. Yan Gomes C
8. Jordy Mercer 2B
9. Jon Lester LHP
