The Washington Nationals season will end today. After the game will begin the process for the offseason. There is still a game to be played today. Yesterday, the Nats needed an ace performance from MacKenzie Gore to bring them their 71st win — and he delivered in a big way. That win tied the Nats with their record from the 2023 season.
In the process, Gore improved his ERA below the 4’s to a very respectable 3.90 for the season. For the month of September in his five starts, he had an incredible 1.26 ERA. For some reason, Gore struggled in June and July with ERAs of 5.13 and 7.62 respectively. Take out those two months, and Gore had a 2.76 ERA in his other four months.
He was MacK the knife, and cut through the Phillies powerful offense like a hot knife through buttah. In his 6.0 scoreless innings, Gore only allowed three hits and one walk. His nine strikeouts set down all the big names from Philadelphia like Harper, Turner, Stott, Castellanos, and Realmuto before the sixth inning then he struck-out all three Phillies in his final frame getting Schwarber, and Turner and Harper for the second time.
Those strikeouts became part of the story with Bryce Harper who had to start something when he was K’d by Jose A. Ferrer who was pitching in just his 70th big league game and if anything, Ferrer was the one to be upset that the at-bat should have ended at pitch-5 because the ump blew the call on pitch-2. It was Harper who flailed at pitch-9, a slider out of the zone, for strike-3 and his third K of the game. Typical Harper who takes his own failures and whines like it is someone else’s fault. He got into it with catcher Keibert Ruiz and Ferrer.
The offensive stars in this one were the rookie James Wood and Joey Gallo. Wood delivered with a 2-run homer to put Gore in line to win the game 2-0, but Trea Turner got Ferrer for a game tying 2-run homer in another one of his clutch hits. Truthfully, it was a great pitch by Ferrer below Turner’s knees that he went down and got and poked it into the left field bullpen. Wood quickly answered with a lead-off triple and scored to make it a 3-2 game, and Gallo added a 3-run homer that was greatly needed because the Phillies scored a run in the 9th inning to make it a 6-3 final.
While Wood has shown his clutch many times this season, it has been a checkered record for Gallo. Some forget found his swing on May 25th and was a big contributor until his hamstring injury in mid-June when he was batting .262 with a .762 OPS in that span. His defense has been impeccable wherever he plays in the field, and the last 11-games Gallo has an .880 OPS with four home runs.
If the Nats can win today, they would surpass their 2023 win total and that is a big ask. The Nats already won this series, and we will see what Jake Irvin can do in his final start of the season.
The Nats are slight underdogs today at +130 to win on the moneyline. That means if you bet $100 you would win $130. Bet $10.00 and you win $13.00.
Nats’ manager Dave Martinez went to his “A” bullpen to close out this win with Derek Law, Jose A. Ferrer, and Kyle Finnegan.
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard has MacKenzie Gore at the top at 3.2 and just ahead of Luis Garcia Jr. at +2.9. Jacob Young is at +2.6. CJ Abrams whose season has ended is at +1.9 WAR. There are 29 Nats’ players in positive WAR with another 6.
“Here’s a guy who can win 18-20 games for us. When he’s in the strike zone, he’s really good. Today, he proved that.”
— said manager Dave Martinez yesterday
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.36 and 21st in MLB.
Here is how they rank without Trevor Williams‘ ERA at 2.03 because he had fewer starts than the other starters:
No. 5 Starter: Patrick Corbin 5.62
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 4.29
No. 3 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.22
No. 2 Starter: DJ Herz 4.16
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.90
Washington Nationals vs. Philadelphia Phillies
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 3:05 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.
