Going Deep with The Nats

The 26,719 paid attendance was even larger at Nationals Park for James Wood‘s debut because every player/coach in the Nats’ dugout was a fan last night. Wood’s teammates and coaches all joined in the cheering and ovations as Wood got his first hit in his first career at-bat and danced at 1st base. The storybook ending didn’t finish with Wood scoring the winning run. Instead, it was a heartbreaking L.

When James Wood joins the Washington Nationals roster on Monday, he will be the third permanent piece of the quintet to make the big league team from the Juan Soto/Josh Bell trade. To be technical, we could include Luke Voit who was the veteran throw-in, and was quickly gone after just 53 games, as the sixth player that came over to the Nats.

The photo above, in one frame, shows Wood batting, MacKenzie Gore pitching, and CJ Abrams at shortstop as 60 percent of the five player haul of youngsters who are up in the Major Leagues on Monday. Note, that is Robert Hassell III who is taking a lead off of second base in that photo, and he is the fourth piece of that blockbuster trade with Single-A flamethrower, Jarlin Susana (not pictured), as the fifth piece. That is quite the quintet.

There seems to be a reoccurring script to these Washington Nationals games with the same dark comedy. The elements are: 1. The other team takes the lead 2. Bad base running 3. Bad defense 4. One pitch at-bats 5. Bad umpiring leads to a run 7. Lack of hustle 8. Bad luck 9. Nats lose

That script just repeats on a loop to a point of disbelief that this just happens over and over. Sometimes it is the same actor playing the same part which makes this even worse. Some fans are convinced the umpires are out to get the Nationals.