Going Deep with The Nats

The Statcast™ math on Jacob Young has already highlighted some of his impressive tools. He is not a 5-tool player as nobody expects him to be a power hitter. Is he a 4-tool player? He will have to show he can hit at the MLB level — and so far, so good in his 10 ⅓-game MLB career. A small sample size that Young is trying to make the most of. His three stand-out tools that are obvious — and starts with blazing hot speed to burn, a sizzling arm, and electric defense. The intangible tool, known as the clutch gene, is the secret hot sauce that Young flashed last night with a walk-off single in an 0-2 count to win the game last night for Washington Nationals. Nobody is saying that he is Ryan Zimmerman or Derek Jeter with that clutch gene, just nice to see it so prominently, this early in his career.

The Washington Nationals cannot start a serious conversation about winning in 2024 unless they address the 1,000 pound elephant in the room with the 3 pitchers at the back of this rotation. Current ERA’s are awful if we can be truthful. Joan Adon 6.00 (starter’s ERA only), Patrick Corbin 5.23, Trevor Williams 5.21. Those don’t even work in softball.

The Washington Nationals starters have a combined ERA of 11.65 in the month of September. Sure, small sample size for this month, but these issues have been percolating for a while now. This team will go nowhere if the starting pitching doesn’t do their job. The Nats have always been built around starting pitching.

In May, the Nats had a top-15 starting rotation by ERA, but now they are the 6th worst at a combined 4.86 team mark. Take it a step forward and add in the horrendous bullpen ERA, and the Nats pitching staff is at 4.98 ERA for 4th worst in MLB. How has this happened again?

The Washington Nationals were an incredible 47-42 in games with Stone Garrett in the lineup, and have been 15-34 without him. A broken fibula suffered nearly two weeks ago changed everything. Without Jeimer Candelario and Garrett (both pictured above), the Nats thump is more like a whimper at times. Sure, Lane Thomas has tried to carry this team on his back, but to no avail. It takes more than a couple of guys, and truthfully, the starting pitching has been the biggest culprit in the Nats going 1-7 in the past eight games.