The Washington Nationals have been getting exceptional starting pitching for most of the season. The starting pitching ERA is the 5th best in all of baseball with a 3.44 ERA. But the Nats offense is not getting the job done in games when the bullpen is actually good — like yesterday in a 2-0 Nats loss. The combination of Josh Bell, Nathaniel Lowe, and Keibert Ruiz in the first two games of this series are a combined 0-22.
In fact, the Nats offense is 10th from the bottom in OPS at .682. Which players are below that level? The answer is too many. On top of that, the team just isn’t accepting their walks. Chasing pitches out of the zone in hitter’s counts was mentioned last week by manager Dave Martinez, and he mentioned something similar after last night’s game. He has to be frustrated too.
“Late in the game, we just chased a little more.”
— said manager Dave Martinez
“You look at what’s going on, you think we’re going to snap out of it and get a couple of hits. It just didn’t happen today with guys on-base. We got some hits, but not any big hits, timely hits.”
You can see the recent bullpen usage here:
Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with MacKenzie Gore followed by James Wood, Mitchell Parker, and CJ Abrams. On defense, Paul DeJong and Nasim Nunez are your OAA leaders , and Luis Garcia Jr. has slumped to a -3.0 already. Unfortunately Garcia‘s defensive struggles are back after he put him good defense last year. Another issue that we have discussed is the positioning of Nathaniel Lowe at first base as he is too often out of position to make a play — and OAA has his chance at success at only 56 percent which must improve. These are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good — but the gap is widening.
“They’re really good for a reason. They know how to attack us. We have game plans up there, as well. I think it’s just about sticking to our approaches and not falling into their traps.”
— Dylan Crews said. The Mets seemed to be positioned well on defense also.
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 3.44 and 5th best in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 6.49 and is the worst in MLB.
Here is how the starters rank by ERA:
No. 5 Starter: Trevor Williams 5.11
No. 4 Starter: Michael Soroka 7.20
No. 3 Starter: Mitchell Parker 1.39
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.19
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.34
New York Mets vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 1:35 pm EDT
TV: MASN2
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 89 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
