Going Deep with The Nats

The Washington Nationals have very little margin for error, and that does not mean defensive errors as determined by the official scorer, rather just making mistakes. James Wood had less than a week’s time in the Majors yesterday so some of this he should get a pass for when he makes a mistake. Each game, each play, is a learning experience. Wood doesn’t have a lot of experience in left field.

In the second inning yesterday, Wood allowed a flyball to drop in front of him — and it was clearly his ball. Wood was criticized on-air by MASN’s color analyst, Kevin Frandsen, on two occasions yesterday that also included a baserunning mistake that veterans have made too when Wood was doubled off of first base on a line drive that was caught by a middle infielder. Frandsen was right in both cases, and so was manager Dave Martinez who spoke about the fly ball that led to two runs scoring. That non-play resulted in extra laborious pitches that took a 19-pitch inning to a 29-pitch inning and redlined the young starter, DJ Herz. The situation snowballed as each extra pitch eventually pushed Herz into a career-high 102 pitches in the game. But you could easily try to hit rewind and see that maybe Herz throws 5.0 scoreless if he didn’t have to redline in that second inning.

The Washington Nationals took the lead yesterday and went wire-to-wire with a 14-6 final score. James Wood hit his first home run, his first double, and his first crooked number RBI count (5) in a game. With the addition of Trey Lipscomb back to the roster, the Nats starting lineup plus their young pitcher, MacKenzie Gore, are part of this youth movement. The only players in the lineup aged over 26 were Lane Thomas and Jesse Winker. The average age to start the game yesterday was exactly 25.62 years of age.

The Washington Nationals were up 5-0, early in Friday’s game, then the team started to take some poor at-bats that led to no more runs scored from the fourth through the ninth inning by the Nationals despite many opportunities. Forget about the blown save in the 9th inning by Kyle Finnegan that tied the game at 5-5, and look at how many runs came on poor defensive plays in the infield by CJ Abrams, Juan Yepez, and Nick Senzel, and each was ruled a hit — they just did not make the plays — and you see the Nats should have won in regulation by a 5-2 score if the defense made their plays.

The Washington Nationals got an ace of aces start by Jake Irvin to rest the bullpen and secure a Curly W yesterday. Tonight, the Nats hope is on Patrick Corbin to set the tone in this series as Cardinals are in for the weekend for a four game wrap-around series to conclude on Monday.

The Washington Nationals bullpen helped to secure the 7-5 win last night in a comeback with 7-unanswered runs to make today’s game a chance for the Nats to split this series with the Mets on this July 4th matinee showdown. Luis Garcia Jr. had two home runs as the offensive star, and James Wood had the game-winning RBI. That was Wood’s first RBI with the Nats.

The Washington Nationals bullpen and the lack of one extra run in the first 9-innings has cost this team several wins in the past three weeks. Hunter Harvey is at the middle of much of the issues in the bullpen as he has gone from one of the best relievers in baseball in April and May to one of the worst in June.