The Washington Nationals got a very nice win this afternoon led by DJ Herz‘s five scoreless innings with no hits. Dylan Crews carried the offense with a home run, double, walk, two RBIs and two runs scored. With the unexpected day-off yesterday after a rain-out in Pittsburgh, this is the second game of this afternoon/evening split-doubleheader today against the Pirates.
Based on last year’s win total of 71-games, the Nats need to go 9-12 or better to beat that total. To exceed the 66-win total from FanGraphs, the Nats need to win 4 more games. There are just 21-games remaining in the season. The team will avoid triple-digit losses which happened to be what Baseball Prospectus was projecting as they had the Nats going 58-104.
The Nats are slight underdogs today, at +120 to win on the moneyline. That means if you bet $100 you would win $120. Bet $10.00 and you win $12.00.
Nats’ manager Dave Martinez has a doubleheader to manage which is the toughest on the bullpen. With the roster expansion, he does have a 9-man bullpen, a day-game tomorrow, and a day-off on Monday. With no game yesterday — everyone got a rest. So the Nats will have to push through this one after using Jacob Barnes, Derek Law, Robert Garcia, and Kyle Finnegan.
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: 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: DJ 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 4.41 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 3.82
Washington Nationals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Stadium: PNC Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1st Pitch: 6:40 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, 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 142:
The Nationals won on 09/08 on the road in Atlanta with a record of 79-63. The Nats are in second place in the NL East. But you knew this already. Box Score / Standings
The Senators won on 09/16 on the road against the Cleveland Indians resulting in a record of 83-59. The Senators have sole possession of first place and ahead of the Yankees. Box Score / Standings
