Look you wear those terrible Milwaukee City Connects bad things are going to happen.
After a slow start James Wood is HOT batting .500 (Yes .500) with 4 homers and 3 doubles in the last 7 games. His complete turnaround along with streaky CJ staying on a hot streak and Curtis Mead being this weeks Joey Weimer has kept the offense moving despite everybody else being pretty mediocre. Could this be real? Kind of! Like James Wood IS really good. CJ Abrams has this in him. Curtis Mead... well every week will bring a new Curtis Mead! Someone else is bound to be hot at any one time.
Pitching wise it's been not great but not as apocalyptically bad as before. Foster Griffin and Zack Littell are taking advantage of the relatively cold early season bats and Cavalli is doing well too. Outside of Mikolas the only concern is some shaky outings by Cole Henry. The Nats really see to nail down at least the back end of the bullpen. Beeter has been ok, Lord pretty good. Paxton Schultz is probably not the needed third arm. Could this be real? Less likely! But take it while you can get it while you can get it because the cavalry isn't close. Travis Sykora is coming back from Tommy John. Jarlin Susana is recovering from lat surgery. And Luis Perales looks like you'd expect the 6th best prospect in a so-so organization would look meaning... maybe he's something but don't expect him to force anything right away. (your best bet there is probably Alex Clemmey - solid but also crazy wild (7 walks in 6 IP) in two short AA starts so far)
The Nats have earned this start and now have some breathing room thanks to the sweep. They stay on the road to face the hot Pirates in a fun battle of "which of these is more real" before heading home to face the going nowhere Giants.
If you aren't paying attention TONIGHT is the game to watch. Cavalli who we always want to take a look at, vs Skenes likely the best pitcher in baseball who has looked like himself after a disaster on Opening Day. The Pirates have top notch pitching up and down the rotation and the Nats catch their hottest 4. The bullpen goes 4 deep right now. So if the Nats are going to win they likely have to shut the Pirates down. The lineup is a very black and white one. The top 5 are as good as any lineup in baseball has been this year. The bottom 4 are incredibly bad with Ozuna looking like he'd rather be sipping Mai Tais and Konnor Griffin starting the conversation on whether he needs to go back to AAA (still will probably get a couple more weeks to figure it out)
Let's keep this "Close enough to .500 to be fun" train moving!
2 comments:
Curious why some teams rush top prospects to the majors. Looking at Konnor Griffin... yes he was crushing AAA this year (in 29 ABs). 136 games across three levels in a little over 1 season, and yes, he did hit well at every stop, albeit in limited games. But did they ever give him a chance to fail? Especially with high strikeout and low walk rates, I'm surprised they felt the need to have a 19 year old shortstop at the MLB level.
Or maybe that's just it? The younger they debut and make a good impression, the more likely they are to sign an extension? Service-time manipulation aside, I personally would rather have my franchise superstar controlled through perhaps age 23-29 instead of age 20-26. If they don't sign an extension, they you're most likely watching them play for someone else in their prime years while you had to endure the growing pains of a college freshman playing SS for your MLB team.
Perhaps we need to judge Weimer and Mead differently. Instead of a situation where Crews and Hassell are languishing, we have a set of specially talented players (albeit with little chance of becoming superstars) performing well — at least until the league has the book on them. They are only meant to fill lineup weaknesses.
The new regime has made two important changes. First, they are filling out the talent in the lineup with complementary tools. Second they are preparing players much more effectively. Young is a case in point.
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