The Washington Nationals came out swinging and took a quick 3-0 lead. Then they failed at the little things, and their lead quickly evaporated and boiled over into a 9-4 loss. After a rain-out on Friday, the Nats have a split-doubleheader today in Pittsburgh.
Some background, catcher Keibert Ruiz started the season as one of the worst catchers in framing statistics. Ruiz had started to improve, and credit to him from going bottom-4 in baseball to now almost back to league average over the weekend.
But on Thursday, there was a combination of poor umpiring and Ruiz reverted back to unframing legitimate strikes. Yes, the umpire should have called a strike — a strike, but what this umpire, John Tumpane, kept seeing was close pitches going out of the zone.
The second inning was a ####-show of mistakes. Look at the Connor Joe missed K pitch in the 2-2 count then the more egregious Yasmani Grandal missed strike in the 1-1 count and the 3-2 count. Unacceptable by the umpire — but Ruiz has to share in a lot of the blame. He knows he called for a curveball. He knows pitcher Jake Irvin‘s movement on the pitch. Ruiz must set the target initially then move his mitt to a point just below where he anticipates the pitch to end up — then work his mitt up for the frame in the K zone — not down and out of the zone like he was doing by pushing the pitches down below the knees. Yes, Tumpane was terrible.
Even with the walks given to Joe and Grandal, Irvin got a flyball that went in and out of Dylan Crews glove to complicate matters as Irvin was on fumes at 21 pitches thrown in that inning and just one out recorded. By pitch 26, Irvin got a strikeout for his second out of the inning, then the carousel started — and 5-runs scored. Game over. Tilt.
By the way, CJ Abrams is back at the leadoff spot. Make of that as you want. Manager Dave Martinez might want to get him going in the spot he excelled in. Also, there were minor league roster moves today as the Nats claimed right-handed pitcher Michael Rucker off of outright waivers from the Philadelphia Phillies. As a corresponding move, Travis Blankenhorn was designated for assignment. The Nationals 40-man roster remains at 40.
Based on last year’s win total of 71-games, the Nats need to go 10-12 or better to beat that total. To exceed the 66-win total from FanGraphs, the Nats need to win 5 more games. There are just 22-games remaining in the season. The team needs to win 1 more games to avoid triple-digit losses.
The Nats are slight underdogs today, at +100 to win on the moneyline. That means if you bet $100 you would win $100. Bet $10.00 and you win $10.00.
Nats’ manager Dave Martinez had a blowout to use Zach Brzkcy for his second MLB appearance and Brzykcy looked much better by putting up a zero.
This is what the Nats schedule looks like going forward, and the plan is to get Trevor Williams back into the rotation and finish the final week-and-a-half of the season with a 6-man rotation:
- Saturday: DJ Herz vs. Pirates
- Saturday: Mitchell Parker vs. Pirates
- Sunday: Patrick Corbin vs. Pirates
- Monday: Day-off September 9
- Tuesday: MacKenzie Gore vs. Atlanta
- Wednesday: Jake Irvin vs. Atlanta
- Thursday: Herz vs. Marlins
- Friday: Parker vs. Marlins
- Saturday: Corbin vs. Marlins
- Sunday: Gore vs. Marlins
- Monday: Irvin vs. Mets
- Tuesday: Herz vs. Mets
- Wednesday: Parker vs. Mets
- Thursday: Corbin vs. Cubs
- Friday: Gore vs. Cubs
- Saturday: Irvin vs. Cubs
- Sunday: Herz vs. Cubs
- Monday: Day-off September 23
- Tuesday: Parker vs. Royals
- Wednesday: Corbin vs. Royals
- Thursday: Gore vs. Royals
- Friday: Irvin vs. Phillies
- Saturday: Herz vs. Phillies
- Sunday: Parker vs. Phillies (Final Game of the Season)
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard has Luis Garcia Jr. at a WAR of +2.9, and Jacob Young at +2.8. and CJ Abrams has sunk all the way back to +1.5. In total, 29 Nats’ players are in positive WAR and another six are at a neutral 0.0 WAR.
“I think [Irvin] relies a lot on his secondary pitches, and he gets beat up that way, starts falling behind. Then he comes back out and retired the next nine batters on really just throwing his fastball, commanding his fastball and keeping the ball down.”
— Nats’ manager Dave Martinez said after Thursday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.44 and 22nd in MLB.
Here is how they rank:
No. 5 Starter: Patrick Corbin 5.41
No. 4 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.32
No. 3 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.28
No. 2 Starter: Mitchell Parker 4.27
No. 1 Starter: DJ Herz 4.09
Washington Nationals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Stadium: PNC Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1st Pitch: 1:35 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, tune to Channel 175 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 141:
The Nationals lost on 09/07 on the road in Atlanta with a record of 78-63. The Nats are in second place in the NL East. But you knew this already. Box Score / Standings
The Senators lost on 09/17 on the road against the Detroit Tigers resulting in a record of 82-58. The Senators have sole possession of first place and ahead of the Yankees. Box Score / Standings
