Let’s get philosophical. Time changes all. The difference a day makes. The difference a week makes. A week ago, the Washington Nationals were 1-6, and the fans were getting restless early. We warned that manager Dave Martinez‘s Washington Nationals teams during his previous 7-years have always started slow. One day can change everything in baseball, and now the Nationals are on a 4-1 hot streak heading to play a weekend series against the Marlins.
As Dick Howser of West Palm Beach said, in baseball “momentum is the next game’s starting pitcher.” From my years of watching baseball, it is all about BABIP and the quality of your pitching. Baseball is about “hitting it where they ain’t” as Willie Keeler famously said. Or in the case of the Dodgers yesterday, spectacular defense can thwart that concept of hitting them where they ain’t. CJ Abrams hit a ball that seemed destined for the outfield grass and a tie game, and he was robbed. When the score was tied 5-5, it came down to who made the defensive plays. The Dodgers did — while the Nationals did not.
The fourth place Washington Nationals are in a much better spot today, compared to when they jumped on to their charter jet to depart from Toronto last week. The sample sizes are still puny. Rely on them at your own risk.
Finished with that tough first dozen games of their schedule to open the 2025 season, the Nats will play all third-to-fifth place teams in this road trip that begins tomorrow. Just try to keep winning each series. If they can do that on this road trip in their 10-games against the Marlins, Pirates, and Rockies, they would go at least 7-3 or better. Just going 7-3 would put the Nats at 12-10 to get them to April 22 in their schedule.
The season is only 7.5 percent complete. That is just a morsel of the entire pie. Hardly enough to make any concrete thoughts on players or teams. When the Nats whipped up on the Dodgers, the Nats pitchers K’d them 15 times in the game. That is a powerful Dodgers’ lineup. Brad Lord struck out Shohei Ohtani in both times he faced him in that game.
“I just don’t think 15 strikeouts with our ballclub should happen. We faced Tarik Skubal and we faced Chris Sale, and we didn’t punch-out 15 times. … I don’t think we’ll see that again this year.”
— Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts said
How many fans knew how Lord and the other pitchers dominated the Dodgers’ hitters? While many fans were at the game only to see Ohtani, the real baseball fans were impressed by these Washington Nationals in this series. The Nats were a single yesterday from sweeping the Dodgers. A game of inches. A game of BABIP. A game of the little things.
Maybe the Washington Nationals are closer than you thought. Imagine if the Nats’ bats start to heat up. There are six of the Nationals’ players batting at .200 or under, and four of those six have played in almost every game. The question will be, can these players turn it around?
Speaking of BABIP, Jacob Young has been extremely unlucky with a .188 BABIP, although he does have one of the best OBPs on the team at .348. The problem for the speedy Young is staying on the basepaths as he has been poor at base running so far. Dylan Crews is at .217 on his BABIP which is also unlucky, however, Crews has a K rate of 39 percent. Then you have Luis Garcia Jr. who has only accepted one walk and has a poor .216 OBP. The team’s primary DH, Josh Bell, whose only job is to hit, isn’t exactly hitting — and certainly isn’t making hard contact. His barrel rate is just at one this season, and that was on his lone home run. His triple was about as lucky as his swinging bunts and grounders. His hard hit rate is only 25.9 percent — the lowest of his career. He was at 51.0 percent in his first stint with the Nats in 2021.
So the dugout is divided into two groups, the hitters and the struggling hitters. But again, the season is young. There is time to turn it around like the Nationals bullpen has done. The starting pitchers, for the most part, have been doing their jobs very well.
The fielding has been mostly good except for a few hiccups. The defensive positioning, especially at first base, has been suspect. We saw another ground ball get past Nathaniel Lowe and deep into the corner from a left-handed batter. With a larger sample size, Lowe is positioned at an estimated success range of only 54 percent while league average is just under 74 percent. That is nearly 20 percent under the average, equating to 1-of-5 grounders that Lowe doesn’t have a chance to glove due to positioning. If you err in positioning, err to get the fielder closer to the line to avoid those extra base hits like Tommy Edman‘s triple in the first inning.
As we asked last week, who is in charge of infield positioning? On the offensive issues, we know that is Darnell Coles who is the primary hitting coach, and on Young’s base running issues, how much of that falls on coach Gerardo Parra? The other teams seem to be either really good at these pickoffs or they know the cadence or some other clue. All in all, from Martinez’s coaching staff to the front office, they have to improve in these areas.
In preseason polls, Crews was projected second as the NL Rookie of the Year. He has been struggling and far from Rookie of the Year worthy at this point. Too much swing-and-miss, and in RISP spots, he is batting .000 (0-9) with a 40.0 percent K rate. No RBIs on the season. Speaking of RISP, the team has seven players below Mendoza in those key spots. Again, this is the haves and the have nots.
“My big thing with some of these young kids is to give them an opportunity to be successful, especially early in the year.”
— Martinez said on his struggling players
Hopefully in another week all of these issues will be fixed. We can only analyze and tell you what we see. We do not have the ability to change things. On the other hand, general manager Mike Rizzo has that power to effectuate change. Tomorrow is a new day.
