When closers struggle it's the worst. Being 3 outs away with supposedly one of your best relievers on the mound and then losing hits extra hard. Brad Hand is struggling. It happens. The home run was one of those things - he hadn't given up one all year and he was going to at some point, he struck out three, and he didn't walk anyone - which was his issue this season that suggested he wasn't the 0.00 ERA guy he started the year out. I don't know. I don't find myself overly worried about Hand. A bad run can happen at any time and the earlier in the year it does the worse it seems. I'd be more worried by Kyle Finnegan looking tired because he's shouldered a much bigger early load and hasn't had the history of success.
I'd love to give Hand a shot to work back with a 3-run lead. Unfortunately the only way that might happen for these guys is if the starter is throwing a shutout. As soon as I talk up Yan Gomes he goes into a slump and Juan Soto, god bless him, has been struggling to get back into form. Still what really kills the offense is the number of bats just STRUGGLING. In the past week here are some OPSs
Stevenson .533
Gomes .529
Harrison .492
Robles .485
Bell .403
Hernandez .308
If you don't know OPS is OBP + SLG. And for that, assuming a .300 average, .400 and .500 are sort of goals. So a very good player has an OPS of .900. (Rendon in 2019 had an OPS of 1.010, Soto .949). A solid, if unspectacular player is around .800 (Suzuki in 2019) and a kind of bad player drops under .700 (MAT in 2019 was at .669). Now stretches this bad aren't crazy. We always talk about how being a .300 hitter doesn't mean you hit .300 every week. Sometimes you hit .250, sometimes .350, occasionally .200 and .400, on those bad or great weeks .150 and .450. But having all these guys be this low... it means half the lineup is worthless. And that's why you see a team whose RS in the past 9 games is 3-1-3-2-11-3-2-2-2
This team can't win like this. Brad Hand closing games or not.
Hit better.
The cavalry isn't coming. This is who they are. The season could be over by the All-Star break because Rizzo somehow thought that relying on Bell and Schwarber to match their career years was a legitimate strategy.
ReplyDeleteYeah. Hand blowing a save is like a punch in the gut. But the offense is far and away the biggest problem right now. Half the lineup could be significantly improved by adding replacement level players right now (at least in terms of performance the last 10 days or so). That's absolutely nuts. And you have probably 4 guys who really shouldn't be on a major league roster right now looking at performance this season -- Bell, Stevenson, Mercer, and Schwarber. While this is probably an unpopular opinion, you could potentially include Robles, although like MAT his defense does provide some value -- I guess Mercer's defense can too as a reserve? It's only been a month so obviously nothing is quite set in stone, but still. If Bell and Schwarber didn't have a history of being productive players, and if Robles didn't have his prospect history...would you really argue that they should be on the major league roster right now? Admittedly, the Nats don't have any other options at the moment, but they are not going to even approach being a .500 team if they don't see a regression to a better mean on offense.
ReplyDeleteI guess you could also add Yadi Hernandez, but I actually expect him not to be on the roster that much longer so that felt redundant.
ReplyDeleteI'm not freaking out about Hand's rough patch, as you say Harper, it happens.
ReplyDeleteBut, does Davey need to give him a chance to blow every. single. game. while he works things out? The leaving him in to start the next inning and blow that one too is just salt in the wound.
I came here to say these guys stink. I hope it's not who they are. They may streak themselves back to average, but it's starting to feel like this is who we are.
ReplyDeleteI expected a low BA, but pop from Schwarbs. He's delivered on about 60% of that expectation. Needs more pop.
I never expected Josh Bell to be the bananapants Josh from May 2019. But I thought he'd be a good contributor. He seems both lost and slow at the plate right now. It's killing me to see him so high in the lineup every night. Trea and Soto get on and then...nothing.
We need more Zim if he can handle the workload, and when he can't Bell needs to be down at 7 or 8 until he discovers something new from the Mental Game of Baseball.
At this point the hope is these guys get hot so we can get something for them at the trade deadline. This team is not contending, but perhaps can get a jump on the rebuild.
ReplyDeleteBrad Hand did not pitch poorly. Bad luck on low % babip in the Yankees games, and a single cement mixer to a single, bad hitter against the Phils.Phil's.
ReplyDeleteHe isn't having a problem. He's having an unlucky week.
Bell and Schwarber showed up yesterday! Great outing from Corbin. Is he back?
ReplyDeleteI agree with this post and the general trend of the comments. The pitching is fine for now, the hitting is not. IF the hitting improves, and the return of Suero, and eventually Stras, bolsters the pitching, then they’ve got a chance.
Of course, one of the enduring joys of 2019 is the realization that: so long as you’re at least 19-31 in a full length season, you’re not totally out of it yet!!
Bell and Schwarber showed up yesterday! Great outing from Corbin. Is he back?
ReplyDeleteI agree with this post and the general trend of the comments. The pitching is fine for now, the hitting is not. IF the hitting improves, and the return of Suero, and eventually Stras, bolsters the pitching, then they’ve got a chance.
Of course, one of the enduring joys of 2019 is the realization that: so long as you’re at least 19-31 in a full length season, you’re not totally out of it yet!!
@Anon: No, he's having a problem. Maybe there's been some bad luck on balls in play, but he's also got a very high walk rate over the last few games. On a more "eye test" level, he's not hitting his targets. He's earned these losses and blown saves.
ReplyDelete