The Washington Nationals blew golden opportunities to sweep the Marlins in Miami, and instead limped away with only winning one of the three games in the series, and losing their starting shortstop, CJ Abrams, in the process. On top of that, Orlando Ribalta went on the 15-day IL retroactive to April 10, 2025 with a biceps strain. Up are Nasim Nunez and Cole Henry to take their places.
For Henry, he has a legitimate opportunity of staying if he can keep replicating that 1.0 IP, 1 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K performance. He threw strikes at a 78.6 percent efficient clip that got him his 3-outs on just 14 pitches.
Some will be tuning into this game just to see the two former LSU teammates as well as the first two picks in the 2023 draft face-off. The first time they faced off was when Paul Skenes was the closer at Air Force and Dylan Crews took him deep for a homer. Other than that they had some intrasquad matchups when Skenes transferred to LSU.
There were three plays on offense that make your head explode. Keibert Ruiz tried to steal third base and was easily thrown out. On another play, the speedy Jacob Young broke on contact without a force play on an Alex Call grounder that went right to the pitcher and Young was thrown out in a rundown. To make it worse, Call swung at a ball that was down at his ankles. The biggest blunder was the veteran Josh Bell with bases loaded in the first inning helped a struggling pitcher by chasing a ball well out of the zone on the first pitch that dribbled in front of the plate that turned into an inning ending double play and no runs scored. The catcher had enough time to field the ball, step on homeplate, and then throw Bell out at first base. There were other plays too that were not executed well.
“We couldn’t capitalize, like I said. We just couldn’t get that big hit when we needed it. So we’re swinging bats well, we’re taking our walks. Just come back tomorrow and go 1-0. But we need to capitalize. We’ve been doing a really good job of really capitalizing. Today it just didn’t happen.”
— said Nats’ manager Dave Martinez
Yesterday’s starter, MacKenzie Gore did not attack the strike zone and issued three walks to a weak hitting team. Jorge Lopez gave up three runs on top of Gore’s four earned runs, and then Lucas Sims crumbled on the mound and couldn’t get one batter out while giving four runs. What are we doing here?
You can see the recent bullpen usage here:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with MacKenzie Gore taking back the team lead just ahead of Keibert Ruiz. Paul DeJong is your OAA leader, and Amed Rosario who barely plays is a -3.0 already. Why is he playing if you have alternatives? Here are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good — but the gap is widening.
All well and good for Martinez’s overused “Just go 1-0” when you’re going to face Paul Skenes for the Pirates. The Nats will give Brad Lord his second career start.
“The big thing is we just gotta forget about it, right?” We gotta go back, we’ll go to a new city now. We got a tough opponent again in Pittsburgh. They’re playing pretty good baseball. They got a good pitcher going tomorrow. Let’s come back [Monday] and just go 1-0. Put this one behind us.”
— Martinez said
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.39 and 21st best in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 6.35 and is the worst in MLB.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 7.36
No. 4 Starter: Michael Soroka 7.20
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 1.96
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 5.63
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.52
Washington Nationals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Stadium: PNC Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1st Pitch: 6:40 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 175 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
