Baseball is a game of curveballs — figuratively and literally. You never know what will happen in a baseball game. Brad Lord, a former Home Depot seasonal worker, started his first MLB game — and his first strikeout victim of his career was Shohei Ohtani, the best player in the game of baseball. Lord would face Ohtani again, and strike him out. Lord was on a strict pitch count and went 3.0 innings of shutout baseball to help his Washington Nationals’ team to clinch a series win after taking the first two games from the reigning World Series champion Dodgers.
The Nats have a four game winning streak coming into today’s game with Jake Irvin taking the mound in this series finale. The Washington Nationals are 5-6 on the season. After this afternoon’s game, the Nats will fly to Miami with a day-off tomorrow, and a three game weekend series against the Marlins that will start the Nats’ 10-game road trip that finishes Sunday April 20 in Colorado.
Because of the blowout game yesterday, the bullpen was mostly spared except for Jackson Rutledge who will need a few days off after throwing 47 pitches yesterday. You can see the recent bullpen usage here:
You have to wonder who the Nats closer would be today as hopefully Kyle Finnegan gets another “spa day.” Jose A. Ferrer would seem the most likely choice. With Thursday’s day-off that might give Finnegan a few days off now after he threw 68 pitches from Saturday to Monday.
“The [two] constants have been the starting pitching has been solid, and our defense has been solid.”
— said Mike Rizzo on The Sports Junkies radio show on 106.7 The Fan
Last year, TalkNats brilliantly spoke about moving in the direction of fixing the broken defense, and that in turn would make the pitching perform better — and we are already seeing that happen in real-time.
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with MacKenzie Gore on top. Paul DeJong is your OAA leader, and here are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good.
Yesterday’s top star was James Wood who finally was able to relax into the DH role and had a career day of putting together five RBIs with two home runs, a single, and a walk. By shifting Wood to the DH role, manager Dave Martinez was able to put Jacob Young back in center field with Alex Call at his strongest outfield spot in left field, and Dylan Crews best defensive spot in right field. That quartet of outfielders combined for 8 hits and 3 walks.
“[Wood] is totally engaged when it comes to hitting. He has a plan every time he goes up there, every at-bat. He understands the strike zone. He really does, and he’s continuously getting better.”
— Martinez said
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 3.45 and 12th best in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a poor 5.90 and must improve.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 5.40
No. 4 Starter: Michael Soroka 7.20
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 0.73
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.40
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 2.65
Washington Nationals vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
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 181 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
