The Washington Nationals found their missing offense in Colorado yesterday. Dylan Crews turned in a career game with two homers, a double, and a spectacular catch on defense. You could say the Nats were ‘Crewsing’ with a 12-2 lead behind a MacKenzie Gore gem until the ball was handed to the Nats’ bullpen and between some horrible pitching, bizarre defense (all ruled hits), and bad luck — the bullpen gave up 9-unanswered runs to squeak out a 12-11 win.
Today is a split admission doubleheader that will be seen in DC as a day/night twin billing. The Nationals enter this game at 8-12, and the Rockies are 3-16.
As I wrote yesterday, “Colorado could be the answer to the Nats’ slumping bats” and it certainly was yesterday. The four Mendoza batters of Crews, Garcia, Tena and Bell all had games that improved their offensive lines. Hopefully they can repeat it in the two games today.
For Crews, he saw his WAR improve from -0.6 to -0.3 in just one game. His defense improved to a league average OAA, and you hope his overall confidence is on the mend. Unfortunately for Lucas Sims, his WAR dropped him to -0.4 on the FIP calculation as the worst player on the team. Colin Poche isn’t too far from him.
“You’ve really got to throw strikes here. You can’t walk guys — no free passes. And you’ve got to play good defense. Those are the two things that are going to hurt you in this ballpark. They came in, hit some batters, didn’t throw strikes. Then the next thing you know, the wheels fell off. The good thing is, we had Jose A. Ferrer and then Kyle Finnegan to close out the game for us. But we’ve got to throw strikes.”
— manager Dave Martinez said after the game
The Nats have promoted RHP Andry Lara to the roster as the 27th player for this doubleheader. He is ranked 16th on MLB Pipeline’s list for the Washington Nationals prospects. Lara is the lone remaining healthy pitcher on the 40-man roster who was available for a call-up. If he gets into a game today, that would mark his MLB debut. If he pitches well, maybe he stays and someone else leaves. The Nationals have the worst bullpen in baseball by a large margin. Since Jorge Lopez was suspended yesterday and the first game today, technically the Nats only have 26 players available for the first game without Lopez.
You can see the recent bullpen usage here:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with MacKenzie Gore followed by James Wood, Mitchell Parker, and Keibert Ruiz. On defense, Paul DeJong is your OAA leader, and Amed Rosario who barely plays is a -2.0 already. Unfortunately Luis Garcia Jr.‘s defensive struggles are back, and he is also a -2.0 OAA on defense. Here are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good — but the gap is widening.
“[Chase Dollander] an unbelievable pitcher, one of the best, in college and even now. He’s one of the best rookie arms, I think, coming in. In college, it was like Paul Skenes and him at one point. Those were the two guys that were the faces of college baseball pitching.”
— Crews said after the game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 3.90 and 13th best in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 7.79 and is the worst in MLB by over two runs per game.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 5.95
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 3.41
Washington Nationals vs. Colorado Rockies
Stadium: Coors Field, Denver, Colorado
1st Pitch: 3:10 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 188 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
