Yesterday is a great illustration why we said not to worry. After 3 straight losses to the Braves (and 4 overall) the Nats seemed to be on the verge of real trouble. But a win yesterday and all the right losses and they are back at 3 games ahead of the Cubs and 4.5 ahead of the charging D-backs, which we've been saying for a while now is the team to keep your eye on. I love using the phrase "They are facing two enemies now, their opponent, and the clock!" and that holds true here for the teams chasing down the Nats. They have to win their games, have the Nats lose theirs and do it fast enough to matter. That's a hard task and yesterday just reset the standing back two days. Two games trying to catch the Nats wasted. That's the biggest advantage the Nats have. Not that their team is so good, but they are good enough (and really the teams chasing are bad enough) that they can't make up the ground in the time left.
Of course when it looked like the Nats would get swept it's hard to believe it because of course if you lose all your games it's going to go badly for you, but each game is a reset opportunity and with 20 games left the chasing teams can only afford a couple of those resets before time runs out.
What happened this weekend?
The Nats are done. The NL East is the Braves. Congratulations. It was acutally officially called by me after Saturdays game. Time to focus on the Wild Card exclusively.
The Phillies win the battle and the Mets can be ignored now (at least for catching the Nats I mean). I like the Mets better currently but with a game in pocket for the Phillies it was going to come down to who won the series. The Phillies did. Five games out isn't a good place to be but it beats 7. As far as it goes the Phillies have to stay at least 5 back to have those H2Hs at the end matter. But it's really not a worry unless they get like 2 back which I don't see.
The D-backs charge as expected. Told you. Now they face the Mets and either the Mets will get their way back into the WC2 race and help solve the D-backs issue, or the D-backs will keep charging leaving the Mets dead for the WC, even with the easy last couple weeks. I'm guessing the latter.
The Cubs crash and the Brewers soar back into the race. The Brewers proved I wrote them off too early taking the last 3 in the four game set with the CUbs when even a split would have probably been enough to make you think it's over. They have Miami now so they should be able to keep it going but we've said that before.
STL widens the gap to 4.5 over the Cubs but it doesn't really matter. The Dodgers are likely too far ahead to catch the Braves so the playoffs are almost certainly set as LA vs WSN/? winner (location TBD) and STL/ATL.
It remains true that 6 is the worry number. The Nats are on 3. If they lose the Twins series that means they have to win the Braves one to avoid getting to 6 early and putting a real scare into Nats fans. Let's go see some homers.
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I think STL wins the Central, but it might be too early to crown them just yet. They go play the Rockies in COL next, then play the Brewers, Nats, Cubs, DBacks, and then Cubs again. That's not an easy schedule. Cubs look like they are too injured to take the division back, but crazier things have happened.....
Should the Nats prefer to play the Cubs or the DBacks in the WC?
Interestingly, FG doesn't like the Snakes, and thinks that the Brewers have a better shot of getting a WC, but 538 is the opposite, clearly preferring Arizona. I'm guessing 538 puts more weight on results, and FG more weight on the collective sum of talent on the team
Meh, none of it matters. Rizzo did such a terrible job on the bullpen that at best, the Nats are going to get beat by the Dodgers. They just don't score enough runs against good pitching staffs to negate their historically awful bullpen.
I know people make fun of those who said they should enter a rebuild in May, but really was it that bad of an idea? They're still not going to win a playoff series most likely AND they're going to have to enter a rebuild anyways if they can't re-sign Rendon and Strasburg.
Wow, just found out that Kimbrel's on the IL and has a 6.63 FIP in 19 innings for the Cubs. The early returns on that contract are not looking good. Maybe he'll improve in 2020 when he doesn't have to wait several months into the season to play
Saw that too about Kimbrel. Damn... That's what investing heavily in a bullpen will do to you, sometimes. Our mistake is not developing in-house talent for the bullpen. Not Rizzo's lack of investment.
@JWL Agreed that even if the Nats make it out of the WC, they likely wouldn't beat the Dodgers. I believe that the Nats have never been a playoff series underdog. Maybe that suits them better in terms of the pressure? Best three out of five is small-sample-size, so anything can happen. Also, the Nats' Big Three are better than the Dodgers' Big Three starting pitchers:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2019-mlb-predictions/pitchers/
Given 2018, I personally am OK if they made it back to the NLDS. Though it'd be great if they actually won a playoff series for once!
Nobody can predict the winner of a five-game playoff series with confidence. I wouldn't bet on the Nats vs. the Dodgers if the odds were 50/50. But it would be hard to convince me that the Dodgers' odds would be better than 60/40.
I personally think the gap in talent between the 2019 Dodgers and the 2019 Nats is smaller than the gap in talent between the 2014 Nats and the 2014 Giants and we saw what happened with that.
Merely getting to the playoffs in MLB gives you a realistic shot to get to and win a world series. This is similar to the NHL and very different from the NBA (where, realistically, only two or three teams has a chance each year) and the NFL (where it may be four). For this reason, yes, it was a bad idea to rebuild the Nats in May when they still had a realistic chance of making the postseason (which begets a realistic chance to win the World Series).
This is definitely emotional (versus soulless automaton) take, but I prefer the Nats against the Dodgers than against the Braves.
Our 3-4 record against the Dodgers this year somehow feels better than the 5-9 record against the Barves.
Avoid the Barves! This has been the plan all along. The Dodgers are playing right into the Nats' hands.
Harper is there any reason to believe that the Nats match up better with the Dodgers than the Barves?
The Nats seem to do better against left handed pitchers, except when they don't (e.g. Max Fried). Maybe someone can provide the analytics on this. The Dodgers have almost all lefties. But, hey, the Nats still haven't locked down a wild card slot, and they have to win the 50/50 wild card game.
The Nats pretty much have the WC locked down, now to ensure that they get home field. If Max continues his trajectory, I like the Nats chances in a 1 game playoff at home. If it's at the HR derby park that is Chase, the Nats are screwed. If it's October at Wrigley when balls die off the bat, the Nats are screwed. The Nats need to lock down HFA and then hope Max is Max and goes 7 or 8 innings. That happens and I gotta think the Nats win.
The one thing that worries me, though, is that teams have found a fatal weakness in Max's approach and are exploiting it to an extent: his pitch count can wrack up pretty quickly. It seems almost no one swings first pitch vs Max anymore, banking on the fact that they can get something to hit after taking a few pitches. Even if they get out, if they force Max to throw 5-6 pitches, they can guarantee he'll be done earlier in the game and get to the atrocious bullpen faster...
@CP Hmm, that's possible. But in the 4th inning of the 'Miracle Game', didn't the Mets exploit Scherzer by swinging at the 1st pitch? There were 8 Mets batters that inning, and 5 of them swung at Max's first pitch, resulting in a single, a single, a double, a homer, and a swinging strike.
@CP/G Cracka I think that in a WC game, the Nats pen is *so* unusually bad for a playoff team (unprecedented actually) the other team will almost certainly have a “get the starter out” strategy where they purposefully try to work longer counts. If they don’t take that strategy, they’d be nuts. That said, if I’m the Nats, I consider using Stras or Corbin Max only goes 6 IP. It’s an elimination game, so treat it like one and fire the bullets u need to fire to win the game (is it so different for say Corbin than a side session to throw an inning?). I know the usual strategy is of course u don’t burn your starter from the upcoming NLDS....but there’s also never been a team with a pen this bad in the WC game.
Starters have better ERAs than relievers for the first time since the DH went into effect. The Nats use their bullpen less than pretty much anybody. I’d say that’s almost a clever strategy.
Agree and agree. What we learned from the 2014 NLDS is that you can't leave your best pitchers on the shelf if you're facing elimination. You have to use your best, try 100% to win the game in play, and then if you do win, figure out what to do in the next game when you get there.
Brewers win, Snakes lose. Brewers now have a .5 game lead over the DBacks, and have the easiest remaining schedule in the entire NL (measured by Strength of Schedule).
Nats bullpen owns a ghastly -10.55 WPA. To put that in perspective, the Marlins had the worst bullpen by WPA last year and their WPA was -5.28. The previous year, the "winner" was OAK with a -5.12. You probably have to go back a LONG time to find a team with a worse Bullpen WPA than the Nats. The reason why I like WPA over ERA is that it takes into account the leverage. If a guy is in the ninth and the team is up or down 10, you don't care if he gives up a 2-run bomb. If the lead is 1, absolutely you do. Of course, WPA is more measuring the value of the results rather than pure talent/ability, but still you can say: the bullpen has had super lousy results this year.
I trust our guys to compete with anyone outside of Atlanta. Thinking about matching up with them is jumping ahead of ourselves--they will not be our first opponent. Two scenarios could easily unfold: 1) Max starts the WC game. Is so amped up that he's over 100 pitches after 5 innings and has given up 4 runs and its too much to overcome. 2) Stras starts. Goes 7 strong up 2-0, but the bullpen blows it and we lose 3-2. In either scenario, I don't trust our bats to come alive for the single most important game of the year. The Nats historically save that for a hot summer day against a sub-.500 team.
It's totally unreachable now, but the division was always my goal for our team and I'll resign that dream when ATL officially clinches. The WC game sucks to be in and I think we might be the worst-equipped team to handle that pressure (just my opinion, no fancy stats to back it up).
But... if it's the WC or nothing else, then I hope to god its the Cubbies. Next I'd take Philly, but I'd prefer they (meaning Bryce) just miss the playoffs entirely. Milwaukee makes me nervous as well. Not worried about ATL or LAD unless we're winning the division. We're in a lower tier right now.
Would rather have Milwaukee or Arizona to contend with in the WC, as the Cubs, Cards, and Phillies would all probably flood Nats Park with fans, Stras would melt down, and then mention that he didn't have a home crowd to pick him up in his postgame presser.
I'm looking forward to the WC game and am planning to attend it if Nats get to host it. Instant Game 7! Don't get me wrong, I'd rather have the Nats win the divisions, but its kind of a 'make lemonade' situation. If Max keeps pitching like Sunday, I feel good about their chances. Of course, anything can happen in 1 game. I went to the game where the Os beat the Nats 2-0.
I like the Nats bats in a WC too. It seems like we have some decent versatility, so that we can face up well to a righty or a lefty. Again, who knows? We've seen the 3-2 loss, and also whatever the high score was (9-8?) in the Nats-Cubs epic Game 5 showdown.
@cools, it has to be Max in the WC game. If they win that, matchups get interesting. Corbin could pitch game 1, since LA is weak vs. lefties (although maybe that's less pronounced this year than in the past?) Game 2 Stras, then Max in game 3 at home, Sanchez/Ross (gulp) game 4, and then either Corbin or Stras for game 5, depending on how you feel. That wouldn't be a cakewalk for anyone, even the Dodgers.
Kevin Long's one trick works when it's a 91 degree day game. I can't believe this guy still has a job. He's had exactly one batter in his whole career--Daniel Murphy-- significantly improve his overall hitting acumen. Well, when the days get shorter and the thermometer goes lower, you better have something better to give your students than "hit it in the air." But all his apologists will talk about is how many dingers and how many runs blah blah blah. Yeah. In the last four games the Nats outscored their opponent and hit only one fewer home run....and lost three games while winning only one.
Game time temp tonight in Minneapolis will be somewhere around 70 and cooling to the low 60s. That's bad, especially when going against a pitcher with good stuff like Berrios. Look for lots of fly ball outs and strikeouts.
I would pitch Stras in the WC game, FWIW. Stras has been by far our best hurler this season. Max is prone to give up three dingers while striking out 12. Whether it's him or the anemic offense, his record ain't that good in the post-season.
I also would go with Stras. He has shown to be the most consistent this year and our best bet to get through 7 in a must win game. By that point there will hopefully be enough cushion for the bull pen. Then you would have Max, Corbin and Stras again to start the LA series. If they win 2 of those three and lose the fourth (Sanchez?) then you still have Max for game seven. In an scenario the starters have to be pretty much flawless to have a chance.
I'm not worried about the WC. There are a half-dozen teams trying to get into the WC2 slot who would love to have a Max or Stras or Corbin decision to make. Considering I was watching the Nats play like crap in May and expected a fire sale then, to even be talking playoffs is a bonus.
I'm going to enjoy watching the WC game. I'm not going to enjoy some idiot like Joe Buck calling the game on TV, but it'll be October baseball in the District again. Anything can happen.
In other news, I'm hoping this was no one in this blog community...if so, I'm sorry.
https://thefandc.radio.com/man-claims-wife-stabbed-him-for-watching-nationals-too-much
(Someone called into the Fan claiming his wife stabbed him for watching the Nats too much. Story is great)
As an FYI, Max has given up 14 homers this year, while SS has given up 21. Granted that SS has pitched more innings, but SS still has a higher Home Run Rate per 9 Innings (1.02 to .81). You have to go back to 2017 for the most recent season where SS gave up homers at a lower rate than Max.
Don't get me wrong now: SS is a great pitcher! Hope he stays with the team for the foreseeable future. But if Max is MAX, I want him firing those 96-97 MPH first inning fastballs in the WC game.
Sammy, while I agree with your thesis that a team needs to be able to play small-ball in tight, low-scoring games such as those more frequent, in the playoffs, you're wrong on a key point: the whole reason Long's protégé Murphy rose to prominence was because of all the home runs he hit in New York and Chicago (both colder than DC) in October 2015.
Again, this isn't to say hitters don't need to be capable of hitting the other way on outside pitches/bunting/making contact for a sacrifice fly/whatever as the situation depends, or that Long is the second coming of Charlie Lau, but rather that you'd need to show a comparison between Nats' postseason hitting before/after Long to make the point you're asserting.
(Besides, as SSLN will soon point out for the 80th time, the juiced ball means that EVERY team will hit more homers this October, especially when their opposite-of-Lake-Wobegon-"everybody's-below-average" bullpens take over . . . )
Another FYI: the 3rd best pitcher for the Nats (Corbin) has a higher game score than the best pitcher for the Dodgers (Buehler):
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2019-mlb-predictions/pitchers/
(Note that 'best' here is defined by 2019 average game score)
I love Strasburg with my heart and soul, but the idea that he is better than Max simply does not pass the laugh test. Max has a lower ERA, a lower FIP, a lower xFIP, a higher K/9, a lower BB/9, and a lower HR/FB rate. If Max is not close to 100%, then maybe you consider starting Strasburg. On Sunday against the Braves, it sure looked like vintage Max out there.
I'm with you Mythra, I'm not going to worry too much, I'm just going to enjoy all this meaningful baseball and root my heart out, because back in the Spring I thought there would be no way...and yet there is!
"Just here to remind you all that back in the spring, all of you said... wait... Suburban Steve, you just made my day." - ssln
@10:30 Anon, yes, the only reason to start Strasburg (or Corbin) over Max is if and only if Max is not fully recovered from his injury and his pitching reflects it. If Sunday Max is reflective of what he does the rest of the month, he pitches (and he probably gets left out for the 7th even at 98 pitches). Only if he backslides and shows that he's not "Max" should the Nats start looking elsewhere.
@Anonymous, the point or points I am asserting have nothing to do with Nats post-season hitting before or after Long. The points are that 1. The upswing in hitting acumen experienced by Daniel Murphy in 2015 and beyond has NEVER been replicated even remotely by any batter Kevin Long has coached, either in New York or Washington. That's probably close to 100 ball players. 2. I believe it is more than self-evident that the Nationals have, especially this season, under Long's tutelage, knocked a boatload of balls out of hitters parks on warm days and launched a million fly outs in cooler temps or pitchers parks...like Detroit, even on warm days.
I have seen virtually nothing to suggest that the Nats hitters approach the plate with any strategy 99% of the time except to hit it in the air. And this is regardless of how many men are on base, how many outs there are, how the defense is positioned, or what the score is. It is beyond comprehension that teams can play three men to the right of second base and leave almost the entire left side of the infield unpatrolled and even pitch to the outside half of the plate against Matt Adams for example because they know he can't or won't drive a hard grounder the other way for a hit because he can't "elevate" that way. We've left a hundred hits in the gloves of guys playing essentially out of position because our batting coach is too gotdang stubborn and fixated on a single, narrow approach to hitting. It's maddening. We're stuck on stupid.
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