The Washington Nationals and New York Mets Spring Breakout showcase game starts at 3:10 PM EDT with a big league game following in a doubleheader. The “Spring Breakout” game, which is a new concept this year, fields rosters of team’s future stars for a showcase in the middle of the Spring Training schedule. Teams are paired against nearby teams in the Grapefruit and Cactus leagues, and the Nats prospects are at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie to face the Mets’ top prospects today.
If you talk to Washington Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo, the Nats have plenty of spots open on the roster. Manager Dave Martinez has only publicly announced that center field is a competition. You have to wonder if the fifth spot in the starting rotation is an open spot on the roster? If so, non-roster invitee Zach Davies has tonight, and at most two more starts going forward in Spring Training to prove that he deserves that roster spot.
Leave it to Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez to nickname a block of lockers, belonging to his top prospects, as “Hope Row”. This is the same man who waxed poetic after his World Series win that, “Bumpy roads lead to beautiful places.”
The SPRING BREAKOUT game is on Friday, and today we will get a sneak peak at several of the Washington Nationals’ top prospects starting in today’s Grapefruit League game against a legit MLB pitcher, Eury Perez, in Jupiter, Florida today.
The Washington Nationals are going through their fourth spin through the rotation. Tonight is MacKenzie Gore‘s turn, and his third on the big league field as he pitched one game on the minor league side. So far, so good for Gore who is very intense about his work. His 1.80 ERA leads the team, and he is sporting a 7:1 K/BB ratio.
The Phillies, with their fanbase’s energy mirroring a “World Series or bust” attitude, have made significant postseason noise in back-to-back seasons. Despite their deep and loud runs, they have yet to secure their third championship title.
The second batter of today’s game, Lane Thomas, hit a no-doubt 2-run home run to left field until it was in-doubt. The ball got caught up in a brisk Floridian coastal wind blowing in, and towards right field, that knocked the ball down like a fly swatter — and right into left fielder Michael Siani‘s glove. That baseball exited the bat at 100.7 mph with a 30 degree launch angle, but only traveled 336 feet — a FO-7 in the books which is all that matters for the boxscore. The point here is that every at-bat in these small sample sized statlines shouldn’t be evaluated as reliable results in Spring Training when compared to the process. There are many variables affecting results: Quality of pitcher. Quality of batter. Weather conditions. Official scorer. Quality of the pitch. Quality of the contact.
Thomas ended up with an out instead of a home run. A huge difference on the stats, and it would matter if Thomas was a player on the bubble. Officially he has an .878 OPS. Unofficially we know it should be much higher.
No other Washington Nationals player was in the public eye as early as Robert Hassell III at 11 and 12 years old in the Little League World Series. Okay, Darren Baker will never live down being the bat boy who almost got steamrolled and then saved by J.T. Snow in Game 5 of the 2002 World Series when Baker was just 3½ years old. That changed the rules for batboy’s ages going forward. Both players have been competing in this Spring Training camp as NRIs. Hassell is 2½ years younger than Baker, and competing in a crowded outfield for a spot. His tiny chance of making the team vanished with his latest injury: the groin. A source tells us that he will have an MRI on his nagging groin pain, and they hope to rule out that it is a sports hernia or a tear. Baker will continue in camp as he survived the first cuts today.
The players lost an hour’s sleep as daylight savings time kicked in. The team had to be up and at the bus early for that final trip to Ft. Myers of Grapefruit League play. Last week they were there to face the Red Sox, and are back today for a game against the Twins. The trip is over two hours from the Atlantic coast on the east to the Gulf coast on the west. Manager Dave Martinez is kind of going with his 12:05 lineup from yesterday’s first game of the doubleheader.
ROCHESTER, NY | Luis Garcia Jr.; Photo by Stephen Lasnick for TalkNats
After the first game of the doubleheader, we got some injury news, both considered minor, that Robert Hassell III is dealing with a tight groin, and Victor Robles has a bruised hamstring. Both are considered day-to-day. In addition to that news, manager Dave Martinez spent most of his postgame meeting with the media to discuss the mistakes and mental errors of Luis Garcia, Jr. who accumulated two fielding errors and one baserunning mistake.
