The Washington Nationals received a gem last night from starter MacKenzie Gore to deliver a victory to the Nats with the big offense coming from Lane Thomas who put the Nats in front to stay with a 3-run homer off of the Braves’ starter. With some add-on runs, closer, Kyle Finnegan, did not have to pitch the 9th inning. Gore had 10 Ks and no walks and just one earnie in last night’s game. On the season, the Nats are now a road win from being .500 as the visiting team.
Jake Irvin, Mitchell Parker, and Gore, all had zero earned runs in their first five innings of work in this series against the Braves. That would be the hope to replicate that again tonight for starter Trevor Williams.
Expect Martinez to have his full bullpen available tonight. Hunter Harvey did throw 21-pitches last night so it would be nice to skip him tonight. But you have to figure all hands are available to get the series win in Atlanta as the Nats are currently up in the 4-game series 2-1.
Three players were hurt in yesterday’s game, and none, fortunately, appear to be serious — even though they looked very worrisome when they happened. Nick Senzel fouled a ball off of his knee and was removed from the game. Jacob Young took a HBP to the jaw area and was saved from serious injury by the “C” flap that extends over the jaw. Keibert Ruiz’s 2022 season ended abruptly when he took a foul tip to the groin — and last night he was hit there again — but luckily he walked it off and stayed in the game.
Good news from the Nats’ minor league Rochester Red Wings Triple-A affiliate, as LHP DJ Herz, nearly had an identical line to Gore with the one run, 10 Ks, although Herz had one walk. That is two really good back-to-back starts for Herz who is on the 40-man roster. Could his next start be a spot start next week to give the Nats a breather with the rotation shoving in the middle of their 17 consecutive days without a day-off?
Here’s what we think the starting rotation could look like going forward:
- Thursday: Trevor Williams vs. Atlanta
- Friday: Patrick Corbin vs. Cleveland
- Saturday June 1: Mitchell Parker vs. Cleveland
- Sunday: Jake Irvin vs. Cleveland
- Monday: MacKenzie Gore vs. Mets
- Tuesday: Williams vs. Mets
- Wednesday: Corbin vs. Mets
- Thursday: Parker vs. Braves
- Friday: Irvin vs. Braves
- Saturday: Gore vs. Braves
- Sunday: Williams vs. Braves
- Monday: Day-off June 10
Your top Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR leaderboard has a new leader with MacKenzie Gore fractionally ahead of Trevor Williams at +1.5 WAR followed by Jake Irvin at +1.3. CJ Abrams is next at +1.1 and Jacob Young and Hunter Harvey are at +1.0 mark. In total, 21 Nats’ players are in positive WAR and another six at a neutral 0.0 WAR. Lane Thomas jumped up +0.5 since his return and goes from negative to a positive +0.2 now. Once again, Eddie Rosario has fallen back into negative numbers in the past week, and he is there with Josiah Gray, Tanner Rainey, Joey Meneses, and Keibert Ruiz. All of those players have to dig out of their holes.
“When we score and we get the pitching we’re getting, we’ll win some games.”
— manager Dave Martinez said after yesterday’s game
The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 3.98 and 14h in MLB. The Nats are now 37 points from 10th best in baseball. Think about shaving about one-third runs off of that ERA total and what that would mean.
Here is how they rank:
No. 5 Starter: Patrick Corbin 6.12
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 3.45
No. 3 Starter: Jake Irvin 3.43
No. 2 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 2.91
No. 1 Starter: Trevor Williams 2.29
Washington Nationals vs. Atlanta Braves
Stadium: Truist Park, Atlanta, Georgia
1st Pitch: 7:20 pm EDT
TV: MASN
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app; In Spanish on DC 87.7 FM and La Pantera 100.7 FM/1220 AM. On Sirius/XM, the Nats will be online only, and the opposing team on Channel 89.
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
TalkNats is Celebrating the 5 and 100 year anniversaries of World Series Wins by providing Game-by-Game Summaries.
Game 55:
The Nationals won on 05/28 on the road against the Atlanta Braves resulting in a record of 23-32. But you knew this already. Box Score / Standings
The Senators won on 06/22 at home against the Philadelphia Athletics resulting in a record of 29-26. Box Score / Standings
