The Washington Nationals arrived in San Diego last night with manager Dave Martinez plastered all over the news due to his animated ejection from yesterday’s game. It is pent-up frustration of hundreds of bad calls this season that has cost his team in lopsided umpiring favoring the opposing team. Yesterday, there were two 3-2 counts with called strike threes, and a low mid-calf pitch for a strike three that got Davey going. He was clearly right. Just awful calls. Per Ump Scorecard, it was a 1.64 runs advantage to the other team, and the fifth largest run disadvantage in all of MLB this year. But the Nats did themselves no favors with some poor fielding plays that cost them five runs (four unearned).
Look, Davey’s job and reputation are on the line. Winnable games are lost by umpiring. We saw it nine days ago in Houston on a runner’s obstruction play that was not called. But you cannot leave it all up to the umpires. Don’t make errors yesterday, and you win the game.
“I wasn’t the one screaming in the dugout. I mean, it was loud. You could hear everything. But we’re in a crucial situation right there, and the call was bad. Look, like I’ve said it before, nothing against the umpires, but I’m going to protect my players, and that’s all there is to it. So, it was just at that moment, it was crucial. [CJ Abrams] takes the pitch, he does a good job. Maybe he gets to the next pitch, who knows? Maybe he gets a base hit and we’re back in the ballgame. So it is a tough situation.”
— manager Dave Martinez said yesterday
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.53 for 20th best in MLB. Jake Irvin arguably had his best game of the season yesterday and leapfroged over Corbin on the team’s ERA leaderboard.
Here is how they rank:
No. 5 Starter: Patrick Corbin 4.89
No. 4 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.71
No. 3 Starter: Trevor Williams 4.14
No. 2 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.02
No. 1 Starter: Josiah Gray 3.64
Here is your Baseball Savant Statcast Link for the game.
Washington Nationals vs. San Diego Padres
Stadium: Petco Park, San Diego, California
1st Pitch: 9:40 pm EDT
TV: MASN2
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app
