Well at least everyone else lost too

You can't win them all.

I didn't follow the game much but it seemed like they were handling the Nats like I would - pitch around Rendon and Soto and make the other guys beat you. The Nats are now 7-8 deep* in professional batters so it is a risk, but these are also guys that are not team carriers. Maybe Turner is a little scary to pitch to but you can beat everyone else. It's a gamble, one that probably wouldn't work over the course of a series and with Howie and Suzuki in the line-up, but for one game? I'd do it. This would be my wild card plan. If Rendon and Soto didn't walk at least 4 times combined my pitchers either failed or these two flailed.

Corbin was good and Suero and Rodney held the Orioles down but they aren't a particularly good team with the bat (though pitching is their main problem). The fact they got through 3 innings of relief with no runs is both surprising and unlikely to happen again.  They gave up 2 hits and 2 walks in 3 innings including a triple.  Hard to do that and not give up something.

Reset - play again - win this time.

If you didn't notice the Nats are almost as far out from the NL East (5.5 games) as being out of the WC (5 games). Tough for them to win the East or lose the WC from here.

The big Q for the Nats is what to do with all the returning players. Elias, Doolittle, Zimmerman. The easy answer for rostering is nothing now - wait for roster expansion (the new limits come next year) and just bring them in. That's what they'll do. The harder answer is what to do about working them in. Elias should be the simplest. As just another bullpen arm Davey can use him anywhere. Now he's going to use him to face lefties because Davey doesn't seem to understand that Elias' splits aren't one year aberrations, but if that's how he'd use him in the playoffs might as well see if that works now, rather than wait until an important game. Doesn't bode well for Ronnie showing what he can do or optimizing the Nats pen but we're frittering away at the margins of the pen here.  Doolittle will want to go back to closing (though he's said he does need to pitch well to keep that spot). Davey will want to go back to using him there. As long as that 5 game cushion exists on either side I say - fine. Try him out at closing again. No back to backs for a couple weeks. See if he is back to normal. There's an ability to play around and having Doolittle in the right spot in the pen for the playoffs is worth losing a game here or there in September. Now, if things tighten up that will be an issue but I don't see that happening in the next 3 days.

Zimmerman... ok he's an issue. When he's on Zimm has shown he can still hit. But he hasn't been right all year and at 34 there's no reason to think he can just bounce back. Meanwhile Kendrick, who is basically who Zimm would replace is super hot and probably the Nats 4th most important hitter** You can't sit that for a chance to try out Zimm unless you are serious about sitting Kendrick for the playoffs. I would not be. I only see one path forward here and that's Zimm as a PH and spot-starter the rest of the year who rides the pine in October. Zimm got you here in the biggest and broadest sense, but Howie got you here in 2019. There's nothing owed to Zimm over Howie right now.




*depends if Gomes is starting

**He's third best but I think Turner is more important because of his speed.