The Washington Nationals took a step backwards with Josiah Gray as he continues his slide since the All-Star break and is now over a 4.00 ERA. Gray actually has the worst second half ERA on the team at 5.79 compared to his All-Star worthy 3.45 in the first half of the season. While some of his FIP and WHIP peripherals kept showing he was in the danger zone — he adeptly worked out of trouble in most games in the first half of the season — and that has not been the case lately. Is it arm fatigue or just poor mechanics? Probably both, but you have to wonder why he just isn’t getting much swing-and-miss these days. Part of it could be that he reshaped his curveball for more horizontal movement and he added a “sweeper” which is more of a slurvy pitch. The problem is he is not locating these pitches to look like strikes and the walks are piling up.
The Nats have MacKenzie Gore going tonight, and if the Nats want their streak of winning series to continue — the Nats must win tonight. Manager Dave Martinez has once again tweaked his lineup and hoping they can produce and get some better BABIP results than they did yesterday.
“I thought our bullpen hung in there, did well. We got some runs off Gausman. And then we couldn’t score any more. We’ve got to come back tomorrow. … The walks killed us today. We’ve got to throw strike one, get ahead of hitters.”
— manager Dave Martinez said
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.64 for 21st best in MLB.
Here is how they rank:
No. 6 Starter: Joan Adon 5.21 (starter’s ERA only)
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 4.82
No. 4 Starter: Patrick Corbin 4.70
No. 3 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.38
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.30
No. 1 Starter: Josiah Gray 4.05
Here is your Baseball Savant link for the game.
Washington Nationals vs. Miami Marlins
Stadium: Rogers Centre, Toronto, Ontairo, Canada
1st Pitch: 7:07 pm EDT
TV: MASN2
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app
