The Washington Nationals have a split-squad afternoon/evening doubleheader that starts for the team in Jupiter, Florida against the St. Louis Cardinals. This game features five free agent signings who are all expected to making the roster: Nathaniel Lowe, Michael Soroka, Josh Bell, Amed Rosario and Paul DeJong. And it is Soroka who makes his first start of Spring Training.
With the aforementioned starters are only two players from last year’s roster with Jacob Young and Trey Lipscomb. A top prospects gets a chance to start as the team is challenging Robert Hassell III to play well as a starter against a true MLB pitcher as the Cardinals go with Miles Mikolas.
This will be a 1:05 pm start and the game will be available only on Cardinal radio via the MLB app. In fact, no TV for the Nats the rest of this weekend.
The plan was to get both MacKenzie Gore and Michael Soroka on the mound today for their Spring Training debuts in these split-squad afternoon/evening games. Gore threw two innings in live BP on Monday, and Soroka also pitched on that day. Gore is scheduled to pitch at 6:05 pm ET at the CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches against the Marlins.
Here is the 40-man roster as well as a list of the NRI players you will be seeing. At some point, you might also see players from Minor League camp get some action.
“When I look at it, all three of [Young, Crews, Wood], they were center fielders. So you potentially have three center fielders playing together, which is pretty awesome. Those guys, I told them I expect them to get to everything. I really do. And they do. They’re really good out there when you watch them play together. Jacob does a great job of moving them around. They follow Jacob’s suit. They understand that he is the center fielder. He takes control and takes command out there, which is awesome.”
— manager Dave Martinez said
“Jacob is very, very smooth out in the outfield, as we all know. Dylan, his first step is really good to get to balls. He’s more kind of, and the other guy’s more flamboyant, I guess we want to say. But his strides are unbelievable, so he gets to balls fairly quick, too.”
“The biggest thing with Wood playing left field is he had never done it. He didn’t know the angles. And as he played there every day, he started getting used to it. He understood, one, the positioning, where he needed to play, and two, how to cut the balls off, which is key in left field. It is a little different than the other two. So he started getting better, which is great. I think he’s comfortable playing over there now.”
“Dylan is going to play some center field down here. I think he’s playing in one of these games. I think it’s actually tonight, in the game tonight. So he’ll play center field because I want him to. Wood right now, because we’re trying to keep him healthy, he’s only going to play left. But I want Dylan to play some center field as well. And I even talked to Young about playing some left field as well, just to get him out there. But it’s nice to have all three of them because I know they can do all three.”
“[On a race], I think it all depends. It would be interesting. I think on a short burst, it’s probably Jacob. I think on a longer, honest, I kid you not, man, you watch Wood run, like I watch him go home to first, it’s amazing how fast he gets down there. … You watch him go home to second, same. All of a sudden, he’s there. But you watch Jacob run. A lot of times I watch him steal like, ‘Oh God, he’s gonna be out,’ and he’s safe. He gets that extra little burst. And then Crewsy, he’s that fast too, but it takes some time to get going.”
“I love all three of them, though. It’s nice to have them in the outfield. They’re gonna be pretty good together. Cover a lot of ground.”
Much of Spring Training is about getting the reps in for the veteran players while working on new pitches and mechanics for the pitchers, and batters are working on increasing contact and power. For the players who are trying to make the roster, they are the players who have to impress.
As we know, the key is also staying healthy. Players will be ramped up in their workload. The team is going to be cautious for instance with James Wood and his sore quadricep.
“In our division, you’re going to face those kind of lineups every five days with them. But it was good for [Shinnosuke Ogasawara] to face those guys, to see them. Like I said, he had a lot of uncomfortable swings, but his stuff does play. He’s got a good curveball, a really good changeup, which he didn’t throw a whole lot. But his changeup does work. And like I said, he’s just getting used to throwing his fastballs up in the zone, which we kind of like. So we’re going to continue to work with that.”
— Martinez said
There are 26-days until the Opening Day, and we get to see this lineup early in Spring Training:
1. Jacob Young CF
2. Robert Hassell III RF
3. Nathaniel Lowe 1B
4. Josh Bell DH
5. Paul DeJong 3B
6. Amed Rosario 2B
7. Daylen Lile LF
8. Trey Lipscomb SS
9. Andrew Knizner C
