The Washington Nationals schedule keeps getting interrupted by Mother Nature as a tropical storm doused the area in two days of steady rain. Yesterday’s game was wisely cancelled two days ago, and that led to a doubleheader scheduled for today. The rain has not disappeared off of the radar just yet, but the hope is that the Nats and Braves can get in this pair of games today. Who knew that Washington, D.C. was in a rainforest? Over 25 percent of gamedays this season have been impacted by the weather.
The Nats will start Jackson Rutledge in the first game of this doubleheader. He will pitch on what was once known as regular rest of five days after being on six days of rest prior to this. The Braves have RHP Allan Winans who has four career MLB games to his record. He was a former 17th round draft pick in 2018. Winans is known throw strikes and won’t walk many batters. He has been one of those yo-yoed pitchers in the Braves system.
The deterioration of the Nats’ starting pitching staff took another hit on Friday as Patrick Corbin‘s poor outing pushed the starter’s combined ERA to 5.00 on the season and the worst mark of the season since early April. The team now is fifth from the bottom as a starting staff after being the 15th best rotation back in late June. That ranking in June included Chad Kuhl‘s stats too. The slide backwards for Josiah Gray and Trevor Williams has been significant. Stamina might be to blame for some of the spiral down, but mechanically every pitcher took a step back.
“We were at the back end of a long stint of playing every day.”
— manager Dave Martinez said
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 5.00 for 26th best in MLB.
Here is how they rank by starter’s ERA:
No. 7 Starter: Jackson Rutledge 8.10
No. 6 Starter: Joan Adon 6.39
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 5.55
No. 4 Starter: Patrick Corbin 5.13
No. 3 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.61
No. 2 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.42
No. 1 Starter: Josiah Gray 4.00
Here is your Baseball Savant link for the game.
Atlanta Braves vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 1:35 pm EDT
TV: MASN
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app
