The Washington Nationals find themselves in the middle of the NL East in third place and a disappointing 2-5 record. They desperately need a win today, and they will have to play the start of the game without CJ Abrams who jammed his hand on second base in a slide yesterday. There is no telling if this is a serious injury or just a “rest day” for the hand.
Manager Dave Martinez talked about his desire to get off to a quick start with winning early and often, but so far, that has not happened — and that one blown save in the ninth inning last Sunday and the inability to score early against starting pitchers is two early issues.
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard are Abrams, Luis Garcia Jr., and Jesse Winker at +0.5, +0.3, and +0.3 respectively. The extreme bottom is Lane Thomas at a -0.5 and he has hit into a whole lot of bad luck — but Thomas has also expanded his strike zone at times. If you had a pick a player who is victimized the most by bad umpiring, it has to be Thomas.
The matchups for this afternoon’s game has Jake Irvin for the Nats and the lefty, Ranger Suarez, for the Phillies. Yesterday it was Patrick Corbin who went 6.0+ innings and was victimized by two costly missed 3-2 pitches that both went as walks instead of as strikeouts. The first one turned into three runs, and the second one was a lead-off walk to start the seventh inning — and that runner scored. The Nats got nothing going against Aaron Nola of the Phillies for a shutout loss. Let’s just say the umpire was on Nola’s side.
“We’ve got to come out and score first. We’ve got to score early and put pressure on the other team.”
— manager Dave Martinez said
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 7.60 for 29th in MLB. Obviously sample sizes are miniscule at this point.
Here is how they rank:
No. 5 Starter: Josiah Gray 14.04
No. 4 Starter: Patrick Corbin 6.97
No. 3 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.40
No. 2 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 5.06
No. 1 Starter: Trevor Williams 3.38
Philadelphia Phillies vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 4:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app; In Spanish on DC 87.7 FM and La Pantera 100.7 FM/1220 AM. Sirius/XM The Nats will be on Channel 181 and online for the opposing team
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
TalkNats is Celebrating the 5 and 100 year anniversaries of World Series Wins by providing Game-by-Game Summaries.
Game 8:
The 2019 Nationals won on 04/07 against the Mets by the score of 12-9 with a Max Scherzer start in a slugfest against Zack Wheeler, and a record of 4-4 on that date. Box Score / Standings
The 1924 Senators won on 04/23 against the Philadelphia Athletices by the score of 4-6 resulting in a Senators’ record of 3-5 on that date. Box Score / Standings
