Yeah to go 5-5 and tell us nothing they probably had to go 1-2 versus the best team in the bunch and it looks like that might be the Marlins.
Friday looked to be a mirror-image of what we've seen. The Nats were held down for the start of the game before exploding late on the Marlins bullpen, while the Nats pen held it's own. Hell, Lucas Sims got the win (maybe his last in the majors!). Saturday the Nats worked a lead off of the still returning to form Sandy Alcantara but in a disturbing development Trevor Williams couldn't hold on to it. While the Nats don't need Williams to be an ace, they do need Williams him to not be bad and he was bad. Given he started blah this isn't a particularly good sign. But we'll worry about that in four days. Sunday was the more typical game but also featured the starter disappointing. Gore looked more like his 2024 self than 2025, which is perfectly ok and certainly should beat the Marlins but Jorge Lopez and Lucas Sims put the game well out of reach.
Ruiz keeps hitting. and Wood looked good, even when he didn't get a hit like Sunday he still walked three times and stole a base.
Abrams got hurt and is out. That means Rosario and DeJong at the same time and many Amed Rosario keeps up his decent start and DeJong has a little power run but more likely they anchor the bottom of the lineup in the "drag to the bottom of the sea" way.
Ok on to the Pirates and no worse than a 2-2 split.
In other news
Let's get a lay of the land in the majors after 2 weeks
NL East - No one has pulled away as both the Mets and Phillies have been carried a bit by their pitching. The Phillies adding a bit of luck. The Marlins are a minor surprise but don't look to be too different from the Nats overall. The Braves are the true surprise with a horrendous start but have been .500 after that and are better than their record. They should catch the Marlins and Nats in the Spring but what does that gap do for catching the good teams?
NL Central - The Cubs have been legit good and threaten to run away and hide with the division given the Brewers are banging the wall both at the plate and on the mound, the Reds are a .500 team at best (great pitching bad hitting) and the Cardinals... well you can squint and see that they could be good but they have to prove it. The Pirates sadly remain the Pirates with no ownership support
NL West - A stacked division where the Dodgers injuries might finally catch up with them. Giants and Padres look like they have great staffs. The Diamondbacks are raking. None of the top four teams are bad at anything. In contrast the Rockies might be the worst team in baseball this year and in this division than might mean 50 wins.
AL East - The Yankees bashed their way to fast start but have come down to Earth and it looks like a division full of 85 win teams. The Rays pitching might be enough to surprise in this situation.
AL Central - The Tigers also got off the a fast start and look allright and in this division of misfits that's probably good enough. The Guardians should hang around but mainly beacuse the Twins and Royals aren't very good. Why is the White Sox pitching decent? Should be some good RP trade targets later in the year!
AL West - The A's are terrible. the rest of the division shakes out to be 75 win teams but someone's got to end up on top and once again the Astros look like the one most likely to do it, sorry. If you want to bet on someone else, bet on the Rangers. They can't hit this bad forever and Langford looks like Wood looks like.
4 comments:
This could've been a much more interesting year for the Nats given a little bit bigger budget for Rizzo to work with. I'm not sure what they're trying to do now – – reduce the payroll as much as possible to sell the team? Or what?
I'm not sure I'm having the same reaction to TW. Going into the year, I thought the optimistic but realistic take on Williams is that he'll give us league average rate stats in somewhat limited innings, probably 130ish assuming decent health. That's a comfortable 2 WAR season, and a bargain at $7M. And his results so far feel very much aligned with that outcome.
His ERA is awful, but it's been BABIP and sequencing luck. His FIP and xFIP are better than league average, and are right in line with his xFIP last year. As is his xERA, so it's not like the EVs are off the charts. His HR suppressing magic was never going to continue, but it's not like he's getting blown up either. His HR/FB is a very normal 12%.
YMMV, but I don't believe there's anything predictive about his ERA underperforming his FIP so far this season, so I'm not really worried. (I also didn't believe there was anything predictive about his ERA overperforming his FIP last season, which is why I thought the "TW is kind of an ace" fan chatter was way off base.)
I am a little worried about Irvin. His outing was a gutsy one, but going back to 6/24 of last year, he's been below replacement with -.01 fWAR (and an ERA slightly worse than his FIP, so I'm sure his bWAR isn't any better). That's 111 innings over 20 starts, which is getting to be a decent sample size. If we get to the end of May without him improving, he might be the one I send down for Cavalli.
Sorry, I just noticed I had that endpoint pulled weirdly on Irvin. I was including a couple decent and one good start at the beginning of the run. It's more accurate to start it on 7/9/24, which changes the numbers to 97 innings over 18 starts for an fWAR of -0.4 (and an ERA a half run worse than his FIP).
Bullpen is so bad. I hate when Harper is right.
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