The Washington Nationals have a doubleheader today after yesterday’s rainout. One thing for sure, the team cannot get everyone in the offense rowing together. At different points of the season it was CJ Abrams and Jesse Winker carrying the offense. Eddie Rosario, at the end of April, was batting .088 — and then he caught fire the past week to be named the NL Player of the Week. Rosario batted .467 with a .600 OBP and a 1.733 OPS in the past week, and took his -0.9 WAR and brought it back to 0.0.
For Rosario, his hot week is incredible even though his season has him still digging out of that rough start that has brought him up to a .174 BA and .622 OPS overall. You could say that Rosario is now part of the solution. The problems on most teams at this point are evident as the sample sizes are reaching the 25 percent mark in the season, and in a week and a half the season is one-third over. A point to start believing in many of the stats.
By the way, no changes were made to the Nationals’ roster yesterday, and for the doubleheader today, Jackson Rutledge was named as the 27th player. Here’s the strange part of that, Rutledge pitched on Saturday and went over 90 pitches. He was not due to pitch until Thursday or Friday for Triple-A Rochester.
While you would have thought after Victor Robles‘ horrific Saturday and Sunday that he’d be shipped out to destinations unknown, and possibly we would see Jesse Winker on the IL with back issues. But the roster stayed with the status quo and Robles was written in to start before the rainout yesterday.
Just up north from Nats Park, it was the Orioles who moved two outfielders in, and two out, including a DFA of Ryan McKenna. What am I missing here? Isn’t it the Nationals who need change? McKenna had all of eight at-bats this season with two home runs and three hits with a 1.569 OPS. Are they upset that he got caught stealing against the Nats last week, and this is his punishment? Sort of joking of course. One argument is the O’s are a potential playoff team and are continually working to get better, and the Nats are just going through the motions. Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post wrote a scathing article about Robles. Svrluga suggests, “Enough is enough…and plant him on the bench.” The last time Svrluga was so convinced that a change had to be made in what he called, “a lost season” the Nats won a World Series. That was 2019, and in his conclusion was that manager Dave Martinez needed to be fired. Maybe that bodes well for Robles that he will turn into a star today and will win the MVP.
Matchups for the White Sox series in Game 1 of the doubleheader in Chicago has Trevor Williams vs. Chris Flexen, Game 2 of the doubleheader are Mitchell Parker vs. Erick Fedde (yes, we know him), and the finale on Wednesday are Patrick Corbin vs. Garrett Crochet. Of course everything is going to be subject to the weather in the Chicago area.
With plans to get Josiah Gray back into a rehab assignment, you have to wonder if he can make it back in the month of May. Here’s what we think the schedule could look like going forward:
- Tuesday Game 1: Trevor Williams vs. White Sox
- Tuesday Game 2: Mitchell Parker vs. White Sox
- Wednesday: Patrick Corbin vs. White Sox
- Thursday: Day-off May 16
- Friday: Jake Irvin vs. Phillies
- Saturday: MacKenzie Gore vs. Phillies
- Sunday: Williams vs. Phillies
- Monday: Parker vs. Twins
- Tuesday: Corbin vs. Twins
- Wednesday: Irvin vs. Twins
- Thursday: Day-off May 23
- Friday: Gore vs. Mariners
- Saturday: Williams vs. Mariners
- Sunday: Parker vs. Mariners
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard has CJ Abrams and Trevor Williams at the top at a +1.2 WAR followed by MacKenzie Gore at 1.1. Jake Irvin at +1.0, Luis Garcia Jr. at a +0.9, and Jacob Young at +0.8. In total, 21 Nats’ players are in positive WAR and another six at a neutral 0.0 WAR.
“We made some mistakes. A dropped fly ball, and ran into some outs on the bases — and it cost us. It might have cost us the game. … But when you make those kinds of mistakes, it’s definitely gonna hamper the way you finish the game.
— manager Dave Martinez said after Sunday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.01 and 14th in MLB. The Nats are now 5 points from 13th best in baseball. The team has been slowly moving up in the rankings it seems week by week. At this point in the season, the ERA movement is in smaller increments due to the total innings increasing over the 200 inning mark. In the old-days that was a good workload for one starter in a season. Remember, that ERA includes two games of Gray and his 14.04 ERA.
Here is how they rank:
No. 5 Starter: Patrick Corbin 5.91
No. 4 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.72
No. 3 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.38
No. 2 Starter: Mitchell Parker 2.67
No. 1 Starter: Trevor Williams 1.96
Washington Nationals vs. Chicago White Sox
Stadium: Guaranteed Rate Field, Chicago, Illinois
1st Pitch: 4:40 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, and the opposing team on Channel 179.
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 40:
The Nationals lost on 05/12 on the road against the Dodgers resulting in a record of 16-24. Box Score / Standings
The Senators won on 06/05 on the road against the Detroit Tigers resulting in a record of 20-20. Box Score / Standings
