As we enter the first weekend of the MLB baseball season, the Washington Nationals will don their new City Connect jerseys dubbed ‘The Blueprint’ for this afternoon’s game against the Phillies. This will be a warm one with temperatures getting into the low 80’s. That should add several feet to the carry of baseballs today.
Starter Jake Irvin gets this start seeding him after MacKenzie Gore in the rotation. Irvin will match up today against former Nats’ draft pick, Jesus Luzardo, a lefty pitcher.
“This year, Spring Training was a little bit different because the [players] all seemed like they came with one idea, and that’s to win.”
— Martinez said
“All this stuff about, ‘We’re coming, we’re coming,’ and they don’t want to hear that no more. They want to go out there — and try to win, and that’s exciting.”
You would have hoped the schedule makers could have had an easy out-of-the-gate start to the season for the Nats. It is the opposite. The Nats first three National League opponents happen to be the last three NL World Series teams in order, going from Philadelphia (2022) to Arizona (2023) to the Los Angeles Dodgers (2024). The Nats do get to travel to the Toronto Blue Jays for their first American League series for three games starting on Monday then return to Nats Park to face the Diamondbacks and Dodgers.
After a tough extra innings loss on Opening Day, the Nats hope to get in the win column and get on a “fast start” in the win column compared to the years of slow Aprils at the start of Martinez’s run as manager seven years ago. Under Martinez, the team has never had a winning record on April 30, and hopefully this year changes that. In 2018, with a stacked roster, the team was 13-16, and you all remember 2019’s 12-16 record. Of course there was no April baseball in 2020. In 2021, the team was 10-12 at the end of April, and in 2022 Martinez’s team was a poor 7-16. Obviously you know that 2023 was 10-17. What might surprise many is Martinez’s best record at April 30 was last year at 14-15. That team was actually over .500 on May 7th. All combined, the Martinez record on April 30 is 56-80.
“I still believe our young players are the key to our success. We did add some veteran guys. We added some guys in the middle of our lineup we think could help drive in some runs. But I think our core young players, the kids, are really going to get us to where we need to be.”
— Martinez said
There is Davey the optimist. Always trying to look to the bright side. Get your team believing in themselves and ride of wave of success. You have to start somewhere, and the theme in Spring Training from general manager Mike Rizzo and down was that the team believed they were coming out of this rebuild. The proof will be in the record.
You generally get judged in hindsight. If last year’s May 7th record held for the full season, that would have changed a lot. The benefit of another losing season turned out to be the Nats securing the No. 1 draft pick coming up in mid-July. But hopefully this is the last time for a while that the Nats are vying for Top-10 picks.
Philadelphia Phillies vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 4:05 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 179 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
