The Washington Nationals were down to their final swings in the 9th inning by a score of 1-0, and received a gift from Jesse Winker in the form of a game-tying home run that erased a possible shutout and took away an L from starter Jake Irvin who pitched six brilliant innings, surrendering just one run. Winker had a 4-4 day, and was the clear star for the Nats along with Irvin who notched the first quality start of the season for the Nats.
Unfortunately, the Nats were 0-10 in RISP spots and could not score any other runs in the game. Once again, consistency was lacking in an offense that had numerous opportunities. An early Nats run was reversed on a video review which might be the play of the night. A baserunning mistake in the 10th inning might be circled as the biggest blunder, but the lack of execution with RISP spots really was the difference. That baserunning TOOTBLAN was a mistake by the recent callup, Trey Lipscomb, who was the ghost runner in the 10th inning at second base and was thrown out trying to advance to third base on a hard ground ball to the first baseman that turned into a 3-3-5 double play. The A’s needed a single in the bottom of the 10th inning to score their run, and they got it with one out to walk-it-0ff.
If the team uses the days-off to skip a fifth starter, here is the upcoming pitching:
- Saturday: MacKenzie Gore vs. Oakland
- Sunday: Trevor Williams vs. Oakland
- Monday: Either Patrick Corbin vs. Dodgers or a callup
- Tuesday: ? vs. Dodgers or Corbin
- Wednesday: Irvin vs. Dodgers
- Thursday: Day-off
- Friday: Gore vs. Houston
- Saturday: Williams vs. Houston
- Sunday: Corbin vs. Houston
- Monday: Day-off
- Tuesday: Irvin vs. Dodgers
- Wednesday: Gore vs. Dodgers
- Thursday: Williams vs. Dodgers
- Friday: Corbin vs. Miami
- Saturday: ? vs. Miami
- Sunday: Irvin vs. Miami
- Monday: Gore vs. Miami
The Nats have three spots to fill for starters on Monday April 15 or Tuesday April 16 in Los Angeles versus the Dodgers, Saturday April 27 in Miami, and Thursday May 2nd in Texas. Adon would not be available to be called up on Tuesday except due to an injury. Would it be Jackson Rutledge who just hurt his ankle? Would it be a bullpen game? Or what about Mitchell Parker on extra rest? He is on the 40-man roster. Who else would you suggest? Of course Adon makes sense for the April 27 game in Miami. Does Rizzo have a move for a veteran to acquire on an opt-out?
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard has Winker on top alone at a 0.6 WAR and ahead of Hunter Harvey at +0.4. Joey Gallo and Trevor Williams are both at +0.3. CJ Abrams well way back to +0.1 after his worst game of the season.
The team will face a right-hander Joe Boyle who has dealt with struggles this season. Manager Dave Martinez has MacKenzie Gore as his starter.
“We created some opportunities, and just couldn’t get that run in. Winker was our offense today.”
— manager Dave Martinez said last night
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 6.08 for 29th in MLB. Obviously sample sizes are miniscule at this point. Still a lot of work for the Nationals to improve in the rankings.
Here is how they rank:
No. 5 Starter: Josiah Gray 14.04
No. 4 Starter: Patrick Corbin 8.44
No. 3 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.24
No. 2 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.09
No. 1 Starter: Trevor Williams 2.61
Washington Nationals vs. Oakland Athletics
Stadium: Oakland Coliseum, Oakland, California
1st Pitch: 4:07 pm EDT
TV: MASN2
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. On Sirius/XM, the Nats will be online only, and the opposing team on Channel 182.
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 14:
The 2019 Nationals lost on 4/14 against the Pirates and moved their record to 7-7 on that date. Box Score / Standings
The 1924 Senators won on 5/1 against the New York Yankees resulting in a Senators’ record of 6-8 on that date. Walter Johnson got the save and kept Babe Ruth hitless. Box Score / Standings
