All eyes on Roark

No real post today because sometimes you gotta put seeded rye on the table. But I wanted to note that today Roark is starting and that is more interesting than nearly any other start at this point. Max, Stras, and Gio are all pitching like I would expect them to. The 5th spot needs to be cleared up but you can't really tell much from one or two starts. Although I'll admit Joe Ross came pretty close to it last night.

So I'll guess I'll segway segue into that first. The Nats don't really NEED the 5th starter spot to clear up. We went over earlier how a pitching to expectations Max, Stras, and Roark could nearly get the Nats to the playoffs on their own. Once in the playoffs the 5th starter is somewhat of an vestigial appendage.*  But a decent 5th helps. It helps keep the bullpen rested (although as we've seen the IP of the bullpen isn't all that high), More importantly it gives you cover in case of injury. Up until now, the Nats were praying another arm didn't go down because they didn't have a good option. If Ross can be a decent but reliable 5th then in case of another injury they could fill in behind him with the same barely working mess they were doing before he came back. We don't want to see what's after that.

Even if you understand Seattle is a middling team who's best bat is thrown off in an NL park by having to actually play D he still shut them down solidly for 8 innings. You can be impressed by the efficiency but Ross actually was pretty efficient per batter before going out. It was getting hit that was the problem.  The home run is a continuation of issues he had before but if you don't give up a lot of hits and walks you'll be good enough for 5th.  That's the bar I'm looking at now. Yesterday he cleared it with ease. Let's see the next game.

Back to Roark, Roark hasn't been efficent all year and has been downright bad about how many pitches he's thrown in his last 5 starts. He's averaging over 4.7 pitches per batter. Even his 6IP with 0ER start against the hapless Phillies he threw 100 pitches to only 22 batters. In his last two games the combination of hits and inefficiency got to the point that it meant an early exit. Once is whatever. Twice is "hey look at this". Three times is a problem. These haven't been great offensive teams he's facing either.

It's not necessarily as simple as "pound the zone". Last year he was at 62% strikes. This year he's at 60% and even in the last five games he's at 59%.  Over the course of a game that's 3-4 pitches. I guessed earlier that he's having issue missing like he'd like to, especially to lefties so I'm going to pay particular attention to how he does the first time through against Gamel, Seager, and Cano who are all decent hitters. Can he get them to chase? Can he hit the corners? Are they getting hard hits on pitches out over the plate?

Let's hope those answers are yes, yes and no. Because if not another bad outing in a row and you have to start to wonder if something greater is wrong.


*Would a great 5th starter start in the playoffs, if circumstances called for a 4th starter instead of Gio? Sure. Would a a good one a step better than Gio? My guess is no. Gio presents a different match-up which managers like to think helps keep opposing line-ups off-balance. He in undeniably lefty which can take advantage of things the others can't. And I'm not feeling Gio in the pen, are you?