The Washington Nationals won yesterday in Cleveland and arrived at Dulles Airport just before 7:30 pm last night. What a difference in an early arrival after that debacle traveling out of Atlanta last week. The Nationals have the Mets in for a 3-game series before a 4-game series with the Braves at Nationals Park.
For the bullpen, manager Dave Martinez rested Dylan Floro yesterday and went with Robert Garcia, Hunter Harvey, and Kyle Finnegan for the bullpeners. Good news for the bullpen as Harvey and Finnegan had not pitched since Thursday. The rest of the bullpen got the night off. Note that Tanner Rainey hasn’t pitched since May 21. Essentially, this is a 7-man bullpen.
Neither CJ Abrams or Jacob Young played yesterday. Abrams is nursing a shoulder he jammed on Friday, and Young is dealing with a swollen finger. Abrams looked like he pulled himself out of his slump against Seattle and into the Atlanta series then went 0-14 with 8 Ks in his past three games. He was due for some rest as was Young — but you don’t want them getting rest because of injuries. We should have a better idea today of when we will see both next.
With Corbin’s two-run quality on Friday night, he has most likely solidified his spot once again in this rotation — or at least until Cade Cavalli and/or Josiah Gray are ready. Here’s what we think the starting rotation could look like going forward:
- Monday: MacKenzie Gore vs. Mets
- Tuesday: Trevor Williams vs. Mets
- Wednesday: Patrick Corbin vs. Mets
- Thursday: Mitchell Parker vs. Braves
- Friday: Jake Irvin vs. Braves
- Saturday: Gore vs. Braves
- Sunday: Williams vs. Braves
- Monday: Day-off June 10
- Tuesday: Corbin vs. Tigers
- Wednesday: Parker vs. Tigers
- Thursday: Irvin vs. Tigers
- Friday: Gore vs. Marlins
- Saturday: Williams vs. Marlins
- Sunday: Corbin vs. Marlins
- Monday: Day-off June 17
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard has Trevor Williams at +1.7 WAR, and Jake Irvin and MacKenzie Gore at +1.5 WAR followed by Jacob Young at the top spot with +1.1 for position players. Hunter Harvey and Mitchell Parker are all at the +1.0 mark. In total, 18 Nats’ players are in positive WAR and another nine at a neutral 0.0 WAR.
“I always say the three constants are we’ve got to pitch, we’ve got to play good defense, and we’ve got to run the bases well.”
— manager Dave Martinez said after yesterday’s game
“The hitting will be there some days. Some days we’ve got to scratch and claw, but if we continue to do that, we can play. We can play with anybody.”
“It’s fun to watch these guys go out and compete. As a group, they’re doing really well. We start hitting a little more, we’ll start winning a lot more games.”
“They’re playing hard.”
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 3.91 and 13th in MLB. The Nats are now 28 points from Top-10 in baseball for their starting pitchers. Think about shaving about one-quarter runs off of that ERA total and what that would mean.
Here is how they rank:
No. 5 Starter: Patrick Corbin 5.83
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 3.60
No. 3 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.39
No. 2 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 2.91
No. 1 Starter: Trevor Williams 2.22
Washington Nationals vs. New York Mets
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 6:45 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. On Sirius/XM, the opposing team will be online and the Nats broadcast will be on Channel 175.
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 59:
The Nationals won on 06/02 on the road against the Cincinnati Reds resulting in a record of 26-33. But you knew this already. Box Score / Standings
The Senators won on 06/25 on the road against the Yankees resulting in a record of 33-26. Box Score / Standings
