The Washington Nationals made a late surge last night but it was too little too late and they lost 7-5. Some bad umping, bad defense, some bad pitching, and some bad luck seems to be the formula for most Nats losses — but this one did not have the bad baserunning. Well, you have to get on-base to have bad baserunning….. While Jake Irvin didn’t pitch great, he pitched better than the box score shows.
The Nats have an interesting lineup tonight with stacking lefties atop the lineup. James Wood is batting second for the first time. Keibert Ruiz, a switch-hitter, is batting clean-up.
Manager Dave Martinez rested Kyle Finnegan and Hunter Harvey again, and neither have pitched in 4-days. Martinez only used Jordan Weems in yesterday’s game — but for some reason pushed him into a second inning, and Weems went from a good 7th inning to a rough 8th inning and one-pitch shy of 40. With a 9-man bullpen, why not share the burden in what had been a blowout?
The Nationals are the betting underdogs today, at +155 to win on the moneyline. That means if you bet $100 you would win $155. Bet $10 and you win $15.50.
Time is flying by and after tonight there are just 69-games remaining in the season. The Nats have just just 5-games including tonight’s game in this marathon of 17-games in a row. If there are no rain-outs affecting games, the team is set to play 97-games before the All-Star break, and that would leave just 65-games after the All-Star break.
Here is what the rotation could look like:
- Wednesday: Patrick Corbin vs. Mets
- Thursday: MacKenzie Gore vs. Mets
- Friday: TBA vs. Brewers
- Saturday: Mitchell Parker vs. Brewers (All-Star Futures’ Game)
- Sunday: Jake Irvin vs. Brewers (MLB Draft)
- All-Star Break (HR Derby)
- All-Star Break (All-Star Game)
- All-Star Break
- All-Star Break
- Friday: TBA vs. Reds – July 19
- Saturday: TBA vs. Reds
- Sunday: TBA vs. Reds
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard has CJ Abrams on the top at +2.2 for position players and the team’s All-Star. He is just fractionally behind of MacKenzie Gore at +2.3. Jake Irvin is at +2.1. Jacob Young is at +1.8 as the second best position player. In total, 23 Nats’ players are in positive WAR and another six are at a neutral 0.0 WAR.
“Not good — you saw the game. It’s not good. We’ve got to clean that up. We can’t beat ourselves, and today we beat ourselves a little bit.”
— Nats’ manager Davey Martinez said after Monday’s game and just keep that on repeat
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 3.99 and 13th in MLB. The Nats are 18 points from being a Top-10 starting rotation by ERA. Look at those rankings of teams.
Here is how they rank:
No. 5 Starter: Patrick Corbin 5.49
No. 4 Starter: DJ Herz 5.17
No. 3 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.83
No. 2 Starter: Mitchell Parker 3.44
No. 1 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.13
Washington Nationals vs. New York Mets
Stadium: CitiField, Queens, New York, New York
1st Pitch: 7:10 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, tune to Channel 183 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
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 92:
The Nationals won on 07/16 on the road against the Baltimore Orioles in a record of 50-43. They won’t drop below .500 the rest of the season. But you knew this already. The Nats crushed the Orioles in this one by a final score of 8-1 and pushed to the 50-win mark. Box Score / Standings
The Senators won on 07/24 at home against the Chicago White Sox resulting in a record of 53-40. Box Score / Standings
