Going Deep with The Nats

The Washington Nationals were not sure if Josiah Gray would make his scheduled start today until he threw his side-session when the team returned to Nats Park from Toronto. Manager Dave Martinez declared Gray “good to go” and said he had a good session.

Now the Nats need Gray to be great today so the Nats can end this losing streak. The team is 4-7 since Stone Garrett broke his leg, and the Nats need their magic they had in the previous 38 games with that 24-14 record, to continue.

The Washington Nationals made their two required moves to bring their roster to 28 players for the annual September 1 roster expansion, and Travis Blankenhorn made his impact immediately felt with a game tying home run in the third inning to make it a 3-3 game. The Nats eventually lost in extra innings — a game they seemed to winning with regularity before Stone Garrett broke his leg on August 23. The Nats are a lethargic 4-6 since that point after being 24-14 in the 38 games before that.

The Washington Nationals made their two required moves to bring their roster to 28 players for the annual September 1 roster expansion. There was no top prospect added at this time, but two players get a chance to show what they have. The two additions required three roster moves. Reliever Amos Willingham was added back to the roster, and the position player was Travis Blankenhorn. Since he was not on the 40-man roster, the Nats DFA’d RHP Rico Garcia.

The Washington Nationals are finally back home after an exhausting road trip. This game is the first in a 4-game series against the Marlins, and the final game before rosters expand to 28 players tomorrow. With the Nats maintaining a six-man rotation, they have been a man short in the bullpen and will be back up to eight tomorrow with their relievers. Actually make that nine relievers quite possibly tomorrow because LHP Joe La Sorsa is back with the team after MacKenzie Gore departed for bereavement leave.

The Washington Nationals won a squeaker last night to ratchet their one-run win record this year to 22-19. With a 2-run lead in the 9th inning, closer Kyle Finnegan, got himself in trouble with bases loaded and no outs, and notched the save by only allowing one-run to score.

The Washington Nationals took a step backwards with Josiah Gray as he continues his slide since the All-Star break and is now over a 4.00 ERA. Gray actually has the worst second half ERA on the team at 5.79 compared to his All-Star worthy 3.45 in the first half of the season. While some of his FIP and WHIP peripherals kept showing he was in the danger zone — he adeptly worked out of trouble in most games in the first half of the season — and that has not been the case lately. Is it arm fatigue or just poor mechanics? Probably both, but you have to wonder why he just isn’t getting much swing-and-miss these days. Part of it could be that he reshaped his curveball for more horizontal movement and he added a “sweeper” which is more of a slurvy pitch. The problem is he is not locating these pitches to look like strikes and the walks are piling up.