The Washington Nationals find themselves in the middle of the NL East in third place and a disappointing 2-6 record. They desperately needed some wins in this series, and lost the first two games of this series — leaving today as a salvage game. Once again, the team will be without CJ Abrams in the starting lineup after he jammed his hand on second base in a slide on Friday.
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard are Abrams, Luis Garcia Jr., and Jesse Winker all at +0.3. How can Abrams go from +0.5 to +0.3 without playing? The extreme bottom is Lane Thomas at a -0.3 after he stroked two hits yesterday at the lead-off spot.
The matchup for this afternoon’s game has MacKenzie Gore going for the Nats. Most of the talk today is about the retirement of Stephen Strasburg. This was not unexpected, and should be celebrated for a pitcher who began and ended his career as a Nats’ legend.
“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 7.36 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 5.73
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: 1:35 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 176 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 9:
The 2019 Nationals lost on 4/8, and a record of 4-5 on that date. Box Score / Standings
The 1924 Senators won on 04/24 against the Philadelphia Athletics by the score of 4-3 resulting in a Senators’ record of 4-5 on that date. Box Score / Standings
