The Washington Nationals have the Chicago Cubs in town for this Labor Day weekend series. With a lefty on the mound, manager Dave Martinez will stick with Dylan Crews at lead-off. He also moved his struggling shortstop, CJ Abrams, down to 7th in today’s batting order with the lefty on the mound. Abrams was on the bench for Wednesday’s game and got the team day-off yesterday.
Abrams has been in an horrific spiral down on offense and defense that started the day after he was named an All-Star on July 7. During that span of 41-games that Abrams has played since that point, he is batting just .169 with a .526 OPS. His BABIP is .200 which says Abrams has been unlucky — but most times, his contact has not been good. Again, what is hitting coach Darnell Coles doing to fix him? Abrams WAR has dropped to +1.8 on the season.
The Nats are underdogs today, at +135 to win on the moneyline. That means if you bet $100 you would win $135. Bet $10.00 and you win $13.50.
Based on last year’s win total of 71-games, the Nats need to go 11-17 or better to beat that total. To beat the 66-win total from FanGraphs, the Nats need to win 6 more games. There are just 28-games remaining in the season. The team needs to win 2 more games to avoid triple-digit losses.
Nats’ manager Dave Martinez gave the ball to Kyle Finnegan for the third game in a row on Wednesday, and nobody needed yesterday’s off-day more than Finnegan who still has thrown 52-pitches over the past three days. Jacob Barnes the only other reliever with a lot of pitches thrown in that Yankees series.
This is what the Nats schedule looks like going forward:
- Friday: Jake Irvin vs. Cubs
- Saturday: DJ Herz vs. Cubs
- Sunday: Mitchell Parker vs. Cubs
- Monday: Day-Off September 2
- Tuesday: Patrick Corbin vs. Marlins
- Wednesday: MacKenzie Gore vs. Marlins
- Thursday: Irvin vs. Pirates
- Friday: Herz vs. Pirates
- Saturday: Parker vs. Pirates
- Sunday: Corbin vs. Pirates
- Monday: Day-off September 9
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard has Luis Garcia Jr. atop of the WAR rankings at +2.9, Jacob Young at +2.7 and CJ Abrams at +1.9. In total, 27 Nats’ players are in positive WAR and another six are at a neutral 0.0 WAR.
“They’re going to grow together. We’re going to do some really good things, and a lot faster than people think.”
— Nats’ manager Dave Martinez said after Wednesday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.35 and 21st in MLB.
Here is how they rank:
No. 5 Starter: Patrick Corbin 5.50
No. 4 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.45
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 4.26
No. 2 Starter: DJ Herz 3.84
No. 1 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.80
Washington Nationals vs. Chicago Cubs
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, tune to Channel 178 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 135:
The Nationals won on 09/01 at home against Miami with a record of 77-58. The Nats are in second place in the NL East. But you knew this already. Box Score / Standings
The Senators won on 09/08 on the road against the Philadelphia Athletics resulting in a record of 79-56. The Senators have sole possession of first place and ahead of the Yankees. Box Score / Standings
