The Washington Nationals flew last night to Canada for a three-game series against the Toronto Blue Jays. A win tonight for the Nats would get them back to .500 for the early season. You take that after the way the first two games finished in the opening series.
The early results are that the Nats’ defense is as good as we had hoped. The starting pitching so far with MacKenzie Gore, Jake Irvin, and Mitchell Parker looks very promising.
After facing three tough starting pitchers for the Phillies, the Nats offense hopes to really get their offense going in this series. The power numbers have the Nats at 5th most home runs in baseball at this point in the season with an average of two per game.
“We saw that last year with these [young pitchers]. They’re relentless. They compete. They try to get outs. We try to be very efficient. We talk to them all the time about trying to get into the seventh inning, 21 outs. They’ve been really good.”
— manager Dave Martinez said
With an upgraded defense, we know that can positively impact the pitching staff. But Martinez made it clear that also doing the little things well like running the bases is part of the keys to winning. Last year, the Nats led the Majors in stolen bases, but also led in removing themselves the most from the bases.
“Pitching, defense, running the bases, those have to be constants for us. We have to do those really well. If we do those everyday, we will win some games.”
— Martinez said
Tonight’s starters are Michael Soroka for the Nationals in his debut game, and RHP Francis Bowden for Toronto.
Washington Nationals vs. Toronto Blue Jays
Stadium: Rogers Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1st Pitch: 7:07 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 181for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
