I have promised that if the Nationals sweep the Braves I will post a very detailed post on their chances for the playoffs. This is movement from yesterday where I said they had to be 5 out. I'm giving them today. Look at me, all generous and stuff.
While I'd love for the Nats to take full credit for killing the Phillies chances - the Phillies have been playing particularly bad baseball for a long while now. Before this sweep they lost series @NYM, @MIA, vCHC, vNATS, @TOR, @NATS, vNYM...
SPLIT VERSUS BOSTON!
@SDP and finally @ARI.
That's a month of losing series. Remember when I said to catch a team the Nats would have to play like the best or they like the worst? Well the Phillies played like the worst and the Nats caught them.
The other thing that happened last night (well other than Soto bombing another HR, but that doesn't change the Soto v Acuna series coming up, just makes it better) is that the Nats took it to Aaron Nola. It wasn't a bad outing but it was decidedly mediocre, and in this Cy Young race, that's not going to cut it. You can officially cut Nola out of the voting. Thanks to all who made me put him in and waste all that precious time! Days of 24hr research by my staff, for naught!
Today is the infamous Cubs make-up game which the cubs fans are treating like the MLB is sending them in a plane into the eye of Florence so they'll die so the Brewers can win. Win this game and shut them up.
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Poor Cubs fans. And after all they've been through.
I have a dream that one day we Nats fans will become half as insufferable.
Harper,
Has anybody ever come up with a rudimentary formula for "when is my team realistically out of the pennant race" akin to Bill James' "when is your basketball team realistically done in its NCAA tournament game"? (James' formula is something like point difference +/- 1 [depending on possession), squared, minus seconds remaining, and if the result is positive time to switch to another game).
For baseball, I imagine it could be something like (GB*5)- games remaining (except where GB is 1 or 2), with a positive number meaning it is time to dump salary or let the prospects play. But surely there is enough data out there from the past 100+ seasons to give a statistically sound estimate of how close you have to be with x games remaining to have a realistic (40%?) or even a desperate (10%?) hope of coming back.
Fangraphs obviously provides its percentages, but it is not clear if a 40% chance of making the playoffs on July 30th means a team should be buying or selling.
Not that any of this applies to the Nats anymore this year, sadly . . .
A case of too little, too late for the Nats. They should have had MANY more streaks like this all season long. Too many teams to leapfrog in the wild card and not enough time to catch the Bravos!!
Have the Nats swept any other teams this season? Seems like the last time was 2017...
@Froggy They swept Arizona with a 4 game sweep in Arizona, back in mid-May
Always good to beat the Phillies and crush their dreams (or at least put the nail in the coffin), but it's too bad the Braves have been steadily taking care of their business. As Harper mentioned early on, that's the problem with needing to jump multiple teams. At least it's entertaining baseball to watch/listen to though.
Oh man, the Nats just need to win 16 more in a row, the Braves need to play sub-.500, and the NL East is theirs!
The Nats picked up a game on the Cardinals yesterday and I believe if they can go 16-0, they'll sneak into the playoffs either as East Champs or through the WC, since that would put them at 90 wins. Honestly, I'm pretty sure that Martinez has a cardboard cutout of Mark Lerner with 16 pieces waiting to be removed, which is both hilarious and frightening. Either way, this team is a lot more fun to watch then the team they were fielding in July and August.
Bro
You seem a little snippy this morning. Mom said take some hot tea with honey and you will feel better.
You signed up for this gig so you have to see it through. As for Nola, the stats are available with five minutes research. We have something called the internet these days, learn how to use it. Just double you annual subscription fee. It will make you feel better.
@ Froggy: Last sweep they had before yesterday was the Orioles, the last week of May. If you don't want to count that, they sweep the D'Backs a couple weeks before that, the Pirates a week before that, and than the Reds the opening series of the year.
Today, IMO, is a crucial game to win. It only is a half game, but that will put us back 8.5, but more importantly 9 in the loss column, and that could be too much, pretty much gives no margin for error (i.e win today, sweep the Braves than yes maybe you could lose a game to the Marlins or to deGrom or Wheeler and the Mets, or to the Rockies out there). Also, pretty important for the Cubs now too as they are only a game up on Milwaukee. I said on another board that Maddon should treat this game like an NBA game, don't even bring Baez, Rizzo, Contreras on the plane, leave them in Chicago to get ready for the 2:20 game tomorrow afternoon.
As I said last Thursday, they can have 3 losses the rest of the way and I'm sticking to that, and so far they've only gotten the 1. It's too bad the D'Backs and Giants threw in the towel, but win today, than sweep, put pressure on the Bravos, and see where we are.
Just a bit of a reality check here: you do recognize that the Nats rotation, after Scherzer and Strasburg, is now (1) a struggling Roark, (2) Jeffry Rodriguez (enough said), and (3) Joe Ross, with Jeremy Hellickson available for long relief. That is not the kind of rotation that gets you long win streaks. And the bottom of the batting order is Wieters, Difo and the pitcher.
And, let's not forget that the Braves are a good team that is playing very well.
But sure, it aint' over till it's over, and it's fun to dream.
You do know that over the past 30 games Weiters is hitting .277 with 14 rbi's and a .314 OBP. If he can do that he can catch for this team.
IMO, I don’t think this team is consistent enough to get that 13-2 streak to end the year, but at least they are enjoyable to watch now then they were 4 weeks ago. And who knows maybe if they sneak in, maybe they do well. So far, pretty much every series the last week has been a game 5, and they’ve done pretty well. That could potentially all change in the next 30 hours, but I don’t expect them to sweep Atlanta anyways, so by this weekend the dream should be over for good
The Nats have not had a 19-0 run all season. They are due, damn it! DUUUUUEEEE!
Yup, they're due Robot!
Also, PotomacFan,Rodriguez is no longer in the rotation, it's Fedde and if Hellickson is back too, but without a spot.
Finally, Wieters is hitting and when Scherzer pitches that's a potent 7-8-9.
Welp, that sucks! I don't think they can make up 9 games in the loss column. We'd have to hope the Braves play worse than the Phillies have played in the last 2 months, and I don't see that happen. We had the chance to make the move on them when they were struggling and they never did. 1 more loss/1 more Braves win and this is likely in the books.
Robot - They haven't ever done it in the history of the franchise. SUPER DUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First, the Nationals made a terrible bad DECISION firing a professional experience MANAGER, winning the World Series with the San Francisco Giants, AND TAKING THE NATIONALS TO THE PLAYOFFS HIS FIRST 2 YEARS WITH THE NATIONALS,SMH, **WHY WOULD HIRE A MANAGER WITH NO MANAGERIAL EXPERIENCE. THIS YEAR THE NATIONALS ARE NOT GOING TO MAKE THE PLAYOFFS AND I DONT FEEL SORRY FOR THEM. ##ALSO WHYTHE MANAGER, ISN'T PLAYING THR BEST DEFENSIVE OUTFIELDER ON THE TEAM MICHAEL A TAYLOR. I KNOW MICHAEL DOES STIKE OUT A LOT BUT HE SHOULD BE STARTING,NOT COMING IN TO RUN BASES AND PLAY IN THE 8TH INNING FOR DEFENSE. ??????FINALLY THE NATIONALS NEEDS TO FIRE THE GM AND THE MANAGER THIS YEAR.
Laz Diaz should lose his job.
Can someone tell me why Solis is still on this team??
And also if we are going to eliminate Nola after his subpar outing then we may have to eliminate Max tonight 😢. If deGrom can quiet the Red Sox on Sunday the Cy is probably his to lose. Can’t say he wil, but Nola & Scherzer probably lost it this week, but at least Max will still be a close number 2.
We've suffered through a lot of frustrating, maddening games this season, but none moreso than last night's. Between Max's struggles, Bryce being baited and harassed by the umpire and the fairly gutless, kowtowing reaction of Davey Martinez, the seemingly never-ending nightmare that is Sammy Solis, the truly never-ending nightmare of this team's failure to get runners home, and the sinking realization that the final nail in the coffin we've known for weeks was coming is being decisively hammered into place......well..... I heard someone in my house dropping a few expletives last night, and darn if it wasn't me, a man that as a rule doesn't swear.
I miss Dusty Baker, Mike Maddux, and (never thought I'd say this) Jacque Jones.
Agreed, JE34. Inexcusable
Dusty Baker never won the World Series with the Giants. Otherwise this comment seems emotionally stable.
Sammy: the one thing I just don’t understand is why Sammy Solis is still a thing. For some reason Rizzo seems to think he is like 4-5 times better than he is. I don’t understand why. He’s always been used in games as if he’s a high leverage pitcher. Most horrifically in the playoffs, where he arguably cost us the series vs the Cubs last year. I just don’t understand the belief in this guy. He has no second pitch and doesn’t throws straight fastballs 94 mph. That’s not gonna cut it anymore.
That Thursday makeup game vs. the Cubs where they basically gave up after the 9th with that horrendous defense in the 10th was the nail in the coffin. 1 game doesn't seem like much, but if they win that game even if they lose Friday, they are only 6.5 back, which is a lot better than being 7.5, but more importantly are tied with the Phillies, which as I said last week was important because when that Philles/Braves series starts on Thursday you want the Nats to pass the Phils in the standings, have the Phillies win both series, and than just at worst match what the Phillies do so you can't lose ground against them. Still behind them when that series starts, and it doesn't matter who wins because you lose to someone. At least if you are tied, you only have to have the Phillies lose once, now trailing them you can't lose the Marlins AND have the Phillies lose twice. Sure, Wheeler & Syndergaard of scheduled to start that series, and the Phillies have been playing horribly, but the Phils also have Arrieta & Nola going that series, I have a hard time seeing the Phils losing another series. Then of course winning Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Sunday, the deficit is only 4.5, Harper gets to write his blog post Monday morning about "hey the Cards only have to win 2/3 in Atlanta, we go 5-1 against the Mets & Marlins, and its probably only 2 or 3 games going into the final week. Who wouldn't have signed up for that a month ago??" Still not good, but at least its a close as they would've been in about 3 months. Now it's talking about roster moves in the winter as they would need a complete miracle :(
At least Soto made his case in the head-to-head vs Acuna
Just gotta do 12-0 and we are good to go!
Easy Peasy!
And Atlanta has to go what, 5-8 and we tie, 4-9 for Nats to avoid the 1 game playoff??
You want to dream?
Check out these series that start tomorrow:
Nats v Marlins
Mets v Phils
Braves v Cards
Cubs v Diamondbacks
Dodgers v Rockies
Nats need to sweep two and see how other series turn out. Here is the perfect break down. Mets win series, along with Braves, Cubs and Dodgers. That is correct, we want the Braves to take two out of three from the Cards. Then it gets interesting.
ssln, wasn't it you who said we should be focusing on the division instead of the WC? Because of "all the teams in front of us that are playing one another"? Or was that one of your other siblings?
That was me, but if circumstances change, you have to adjust. We weren't going to catch Atlanta but with the teams in the wild card race collapsing, there was a way to the playoffs. Here is a hint. We had three head to head against Colorado to end the season.
But if you can't beat the Fish because you have one of the worst bullpens in the league then even the theories evaporate
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