Monday Quickie - Tony Two-Wins

 On the plus side the Nats hung with a respectable team on the back end of a road trip. They got three "I'll take it" pitching performances and some big time relief outings. They looked like a real baseball team and finish the swing 4-5. That's not a good performance but it's middle of the road for a team that looked like far far less than that to start the year. 

On the negative side it's still 4-5. The Nats still are last in the NL East, tied for 2nd to last in the NL (those Reds are going to be hard to catch), and tied for 3rd to last in all of baseball (come on Tigers!).  The starts were all imperfect and the relief positives were balanced by a big (and completely expected) negative. 

All in all it's what you'd expect from a 70 win team that started slow.

So how about those pitching performances?

Adon - 5 innings, 3 hits, 5 walks, 6 Ks.  I really liked this outing because Adon was in big trouble - going Walk, Single, Walk, Double, IBB and facing Rendon, down 3-0, and Davey let him pitch.  He got a DP (part skill part luck) and got out of it. This is the type of thing the Nats need to be doing all season long. 

Voth/Espino/Arano - no runs. Arano put two on but also K'd two in his inning

Gray - 5 innings, 5 hits, 2 walks, 3Ks.  It was fine.  Jo-Jo See-Ya was back in effect with 2 homers and that that's going to be his issue going forward, but we know that. Keep the hits and walks down though and it'll play. It'll play as a 4/5 but it'll play. Get those K's up and maybe it even works. 

Cishek/Ramirez/Rainey - no runs. Ramirez ate a couple innings which is good and we'll want to see more of that given these guys are all going 5. 

Fedde - 5 innings, 2 hits, 5 walks, 4 Ks.  Too many walks with not enough Ks  More FBs than GBs... We'll check all the pitchers out stat wise around Memorial Day but there isn't anything to start with that looks much better. Sometime they hit it where your guys are.

Rogers - hit hard. We've talked about how he was not a good pitcher last year and to look at his results and think maybe you had something, as some were, would be silly. He's now back around his FIP which is high 5s.  Last guy in the pen stuff when you don't have a wild young guy you just want to stick in there for experience. 

 Finnegan / Voth - no runs.

Rainey... ok look there had been rumblings that maybe Rainey had turned a corner. And he has pitched better than last year, though it would be hard not to. He seems to have a bit more control, while sacrificing some Ks - which is fine that tradeoff works given the improvement in one to the falling in the other. But he's not a lights out closer.  He's a decent relief arm and guess what - a decent relief arm works as a modern "face a random 3 guys in the 9th inning" closer. He's better than the guy in 2019/2020 who was ok, but not much.  He's not giving up zero homers - he hasn't become a dramatic GB guy. Runs will come. But if you want to say he's the closer. Fine. He's the closer. He's cheap. He's got three years past this. You are getting something from this guy.