The Washington Nationals have their first injury concern of the 2025 regular season as newly acquired starter, Michael Soroka, said that his bicep in his pitching arm cramped up on him. We hope this is just due to dehydration and nothing serious — but manager Dave Martinez had no update in the pre-game.
Last night, the Nats dropped the first game of the series by a final score of 5-2. A game of inches and feet, but one serious trend by all players on this Nats’ team, not named Keibert Ruiz, is the swing & miss and especially chasing pitches out of the zone. The opposing team knows that you never throw a Nats’ player a fastball near the zone in a 2-0 or 3-1 count because typically the Nats players will chase a pitch out of the zone. Who is prepping these batters?
The Nats continue hitting home runs and have kept their two home runs per game pace so far this season and stay at 5th best in MLB. As we discussed in our first series analysis, the RISP struggles continue to worsen at a .121 batting average and 5th worst in baseball. Last night, CJ Abrams and James Wood went back-to-back to get the Nats within two runs in the game — but that was the only scoring by the Nats.
“I just hit it perfect. The ball was a little bit outside, I kind of pulled it, and I had James Wood’s bat in my hand, so I think that kind of helped.”
— Abrams said
“I used [his bat] in Spring Training a lot. I’ve got some on the way. We’ll see what we can do. … It’s a little heavier, a little longer. So just kind of feeling the barrel, it just feels good in my hand.”
With an upgraded defense, we know that can positively impact the pitching staff. But manager Dave 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 Trevor Williams for the Washington Nationals, and the Blue Jays have Jose Berrios. Dylan Crews gets a scheduled rest day and Alex Call gets his first start of the season.
Washington Nationals vs. Toronto Blue Jays
Stadium: Rogers Centre, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
1st Pitch: 7:07 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):
