The Washington Nationals had the perfect setup for last night’s game with Mitchell Parker on the mound, but once again a great start was squandered by a lack of offense and a bullpen meltdown. The bullpen issues turned into a benches clearing incident that has manager Dave Martinez suspended for today while reliever Jorge Lopez appeals his 3-game suspension.
This is the fourth game of this series, and the Nats need a win to even the series at 2-2. After this game, the Nationals will fly to Denver to begin a weekend series with the Colorado Rockies.
The Nats showed up flat last night and didn’t score a run until the 9th inning when the game was put away after the Pirates hit a grand slam off of the Nats’ bullpen to make the score 6-0. The final score was 6-1.
“The key was we couldn’t score any runs. We started swinging the bats late in the game, but our bats didn’t show up today.”
— Martinez said after the game
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 James Wood and Keibert Ruiz. On defense, Paul DeJong is your OAA leader, and Amed Rosario who barely plays is a -3.0 already. Here are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good — but the gap is widening.
Trevor Williams will start today for the Nationals in the stadium where he got his start as a Pirates with his MLB debut in 2016. He was a minor league trade acquisition back in 2015 from the Marlins to the Pirates. He had his best season for Pittsburgh back in 2018.
The Nationals have three daily starters who are well below the .200 batting average line known as the Mendoza Line. The season is now just over 10 percent completed, and the early results are worrisome based on underlying statistics such as chasing balls out of the zone. Luis Garcia Jr., Josh Bell, and Dylan Crews are all on the Mendoza list. Each have started most of the season. Bell has the lowest exit velo of his career, and his in-zone misses are as troublesome as the out-of-zone misses. Bell will sit today.
Baseball is a team sport with 26-players. It is important to manage rest for pitchers and the starting catcher. Keibert Ruiz will sit for only the second game of the season today after going on a 1-14 skid since Sunday.
“Team sport. You win as a team, you lose as a team. You can pick good things out of it, but at the end of the day it’s a team sport.”
— Mitchell Parker said after the game
A surgeon’s thoughts on Paul DeJong‘s facial injury after he was hit in the face by a 92.7 mph fastball. Here is our Q&A with Dr. Brian Polsky, surgeon at The Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics:
What is your thinking about Paul DeJong’s facial injury?
“It sounds like he has a nasal fracture, and the immediate things you have to worry about are any kind of internal bleed – so you have to rule out a concussion – and then you also have to make sure there’s no fractures around the eye orbit, because [the hit] was very close to [the eye] too. [Team physicians] are going to want to make sure his vision is okay before he can return to play. When you get hit like that, you have to think about multiple things at the same time, and that’s what [team physicians] have been evaluating.”
What does the recovery process look like assuming it is just a nasal fracture with no other complications?
“They’re going to evaluate how bad the fracture is – if he has what we would call a displaced fracture, where his nose was moved to the side – he might potentially need a surgical procedure. Now, from what I’ve read, it doesn’t sound like that. So, it sounds like a fairly minor, stable fracture. And if that is the case, it’ll still take 6-8 weeks to completely heal… but if it’s stable and he can breathe okay, there’s no bleeding or headaches or anything like that, then they’ll probably let him play.”
How does this impact his future playing abilities?
“[If there is no concussion], once it heals, he should be normal again, there shouldn’t be any increased risk of anything. Now, he’s a professional, but he might have some mental anguish over this and be hesitant to get out there [for fear of being hit by a pitch]. That’s a different issue, but physically, he should be fine.”
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.07 and 17th best in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 7.21 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 1.85
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.91
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.52
Washington Nationals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates
Stadium: PNC Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1st Pitch: 12:35 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 176 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
