0:03

Another day, another uninspired loss. The Nats did in fact take the lead in the 7th, rather than blow it, only to blow it in the 8th. Mixing things up I guess.

Matt Williams keeps on picking exactly the wrong guy at the wrong time. This time it was Blake Treinen. Overall his numbers are, well they are ok, 3.86 ERA/ 1.365 WHIP  It's not good but as the 4th or 5th arm in the pen you could do worse. But he is special. In June I looked at Treinen pitching in tight games and found him... lacking.  Let's see if those numbers improved.

Entered 3 game when Nats were down 2 : Made it worse 1 time
Entered 11 games when Nats were down 1 : Made it worse 7 times
Entered 9 games when Nats were tied : Made it worse 3 times

Entered 6 games when Nats were up 1 : Made it worse 1 time

Entered 4 games when Nats were up 2 : Made it worse 2 times

Combined close game appearances : 33.
Made it worse : 14 times
42% soul crushing average

Technically better (was at 50%)! He went from crushing your soul every other time out there to crushing your soul every third time out there. Progress? 

This highlighted the big issue with the pen. It looks passable, but close and late things blew up. 

Grace : .414 / .528 / .517

Roark : .333 / .349 / .548
Treinen : .330 / .433 / 432

Janssen : .293 / .341 / .480

Storen (7th / 8th inning)  : 9.15 ERA

(Cedeno and Martin also were terrible here in very limited outings) 

or you can look at "high leverage" 

Grace : .478 / .538 / .609

Janssen : .348 / .392 / .500

Treinen : .317 / ..391 / .450 

Barrett : .319 / .333 / .404

Rivero : .259 / .286 / .444

(Cedeno, Solis and Cole also were terrible...)  

Small sample sizes understood but the point is you usually want a couple of complete shutdown guys, who almost always get the job done, some middling guys who screw up every once in a while but are effective far more often than not, and some guys who pitch like the above, screwing up every 2,  3,  4 outings who you hopefully work out of the pen in favor of others.

Storen as a closer was a shutdown guy. Thronton was pretty close to that, too*. In the middling area you had Rivero, Roark when settled, Barrett during his second go around before getting hurt. (It's true!).  The rest, Storen as a set-up guy, Roark when transitioning, Janssen, Treinen, Grace, most of the one-offs brought up, were garbage.

That may seem almost like a fair split but when you work out the timing, in reality that meant that the Nats had a working pen** for about a month. Rivero came up in early June but at that time Roark was starting and Barrett was out, meaning that you went from 3 pen arms (Storen, Thornton, Roark) to 3 pen arms (Storen, Thornton, Rivero).  This group would expand to 4 when an effective Barrett returned on July 10th and would expand to 5 (look Ma! He's working like a real grown up bullpen!) when Roark finally got settled after transitioning back to a relief role in late July.

This doesn't mean that the Nats could capitalize on this theoretically good bullpen. There was no way to know Barrett would be ok until he threw a handful of times, and no way to know when Roark would get settled (he'd blow one game and put another out of reach before he did) If Williams was given this pen : Storen, Thornton, Rivero, Roark and let's call him Better Barrett;  for a while, maybe by the middle of August he would have found a rhythm. But by August 5th Barrett would go down and Papelbon would come in effectively weakening a strength and creating a new weakness elsewhere. Williams' chance at a pen that he could manage was gone.

Eh this depresses me.

Tonight is ZNN's last home game. Not being in DC I don't really have anything to say about that and will hold off my appreciation for his last start. But you guys, who've spent years watching him on that mound, this is the last time in a Nats uniform that he'll do it (likely) so feel free to share some ZNN memories below.

* One of the bigger questions is how an effective former closer like Thornton never got a real chance to be the set-up guy.  He would do the job nearly every time tasked with it but never came together into him handling the 8th. The season definitely started with Treinen and Barrett as the favorites for 8th inning guy. But as both of them failed Thornton came in and was fine... but then the Nats didn't settle on him. Instead Solis, Grace, Roark, Barrett a little got chances. Then Barrett again and Janssen, then Carpenter, then Thornton (finally). But he blew one game and then it was Janssen again. At this point we get to Papelbon.

Why was the effective Thornton not used at the very end of close games? You could argue it was because they were trying to use that role to find the future closer. That's any youngster that showed a hint of promise was used there, Treinen, Barrett, Grace, Solis, not to mention cheap old guys (Carpenter) or guys that perhaps could excel there for relative peanuts (Janssen). But if that's the case why didn't Rivero every get a shot? Do they not see him as a future closer? 

(Some people noted that Thornton's age/recovery might have played into this - makes sense, at least for the first couple months) 

**as defined as a couple shutdown type guys, with 2-3 other reliable arms.