Monday Quickie - A Tale of Two Nationals Teams

For the Wild Card Nats the weekend went well. These guys ignore the Braves as a direct competitor and see this stretch as simply a tough 16 games they have to survive. With the majority of games at home, 9-7 would be great, but 8-8 would be fine. It's not the pace the Nats want, but playing .500 ball when you are playing this many straight including 10 games against division leaders would reinforce the Nats are continuing to play at a high level. It would probably put them just outside of the WC when it's over but with the toughest stretch of the season likely over they'd be a good bet to pick up a few games on the rest of the field.

For the NL East Division Hopeful Nats the weekend was a failure. These guys see the Braves as the team they have to catch and they already had dug themselves a 6.5 game hole. It's a tough ask to expect the Nats to make up that many games over the course of the rest of the season. They just played the best baseball in the majors for 44 games and only made up 3.5 games. The saving grace though was 14 head to head games remaining in which the Nats could control their destiny. The more they make up on the Braves head to head, the more reasonable how much better they need to play better than Atlanta in the non head to head games. But to do that, to go say 9-5 at least in those games, the Nats need to win series against Atlanta. Instead 4 games have passed and the Nats made up no ground. Now they have to go 7-3 in the remaining 10 to make up the 4 games

Now it's on to the Rockies and the hope of a 3-1 series win or better because anything else puts pressure on winning the Dodgers series.

The Rockies have been a roller coaster ride this season. 3-12 to start the year, then a climb featuring runs of 10-2 and 11-2 to get them into the WC hunt before a recent 2-13 swing took them right back out. It's a hard team to read because of course the Rockies hit well and pitch poorly, but the Nats are catching them in DC so we can see how these guys hit/pitch away from home which is the flip. They have an ERA of 4.21 which would be Top 3 in NL and an OPS of .658 which would be dead last.

Offensively Arenando can hit, Story is pretty good too and away from home the catcher tandem (Wolters/Ianetta) does better. Maybe catching in Coors is a bit of a mind-sucking experience.  Murphy and Desmond aren't particularly good on the road, while Dahl and Blackmon suffer real dropoffs. McMahon and Tapia are not good anywhere.  I'd say it's a pretty ineffectual lineup where you have one star hitter in Arenando who's having an off year and one star hitter in Blackmon who's only a star at Coors. That isn't enough to balance the rest. Story is a decent bat. Murphy, Dahl, and Desmond aren't awful. The rest are. It's sort of a lineup I'd expect to fall as "worst of the teams who aren't truly terrible" if they had a regular home field. Like a Reds/Giants/Padres are now.

Relief pitching is a biog strength away from home. Davis and McGee have ERAs under 1.00. Oberg is at 1.71. Diaz, Dunn, and Estevez under 3.00.  It's actually a real solid group that can hold a lead given to them when you aren't dealing with this superball and playing on the moon. The Nats will catch the following pitchers.

Lambert - (3.00 ERA on road - 2 starts) rookie that's hard to read as he's only had two starts away from Coors, but pretty good numbers in those two and it was against the Cubs and Dodgers. Then they it's Jon Gray (4.29 - 11) who has figured out how to pitch in Coors but that's made him middling outside of it. After that is Kyle Freland who got beat up in NY and hasn't had an impressive season home or away. Game 4 would have been Senzatela but he's been demoted.  Hoffman will likely pitch and he's not been good. The Nats luckily miss German Marquez who is honestly a good starter.So in short they get Lambert - an interesting control-heavy prospect, Jon Gray -  perfectly solid middle rotation guy, Kyle Freeland - last year's hotness who is struggling in 2019, and likely Hoffman - a one time big time prospect who now seems like rotation filler (why didn't he match up with Fedde?)

The Nats counter with Fedde, Stras, Corbin and then hopefully Max.  The pitching match-ups would probably favor Rockies, Nats, Nats, and almost certainly Nats again even if they run out Ross or Voth. I like the Nats to take 3 of 4 in a lower scoring set then you'd probably expect. However, if the Nats find themselves behind going into the later innings things could get ugly. They need to jump on the beatable starters then let the bullpen hold off a less than impressive Rockies away lineup.

No rest for the weary - or the Nats

The Nats are moving on so must we. The Nats blew the final game of the Oriole two set. On one hand, if you played the Orioles 4 times you'd want to win 3 and if you played them 2 and 2 you'd want to win the 2 at home so this is just in line with targets. On the other hand the Nats bullpen blew up and the offense scored two runs against a bad pitching team, highlighting the known issue for the Nats and the less dire, but still relevant issue that I've been harping on for a few weeks.

But these two games were supposed to ease the Nats into a 14 game stretch and instead they've now worked the pen a little bit and lost a game. Ugh.

Anyway how are the Braves? It's been a while!

Since the Nats last played the Braves the Nats have rolled going 13-4 against schedule that featured four of the worst teams in baseball in five of their 6 series. The Braves though haven't folded. They went 12-7 against a schedule that was more balanced - Cubs, Mets, Phillies, Marlins, Padres, Brewers and kept a healthy lead on the Nationals.

Their lineup is kind of a better version of the Nats one. There's a couple stars they rely on, one stalwart and one youngster - Freeman and Acuna. They aren't hitting as well as Rendon and Soto, but while the Nats have one guy you like in Trea, and a bunch of other guys you don't hate, the Braves have a bunch of other guys you like and one position (McCann/Flowers) you don't hate. Albies? He's ok. Swanson? ok. Riley? ok. Markakis? ok.  Any single comparison - say Markakis to Eaton, wouldn't be a big deal but line up 4 of them where the Braves have that slight edge and it adds up. Plus there's Donaldson who gives the Braves a solid third bat to rely on which the Nats DO have but it's on a "who's up" basis. Right now it's Dozier. Before it was Kendrick most of the year. If there is a bright side for the Nats the Braves bats have been colder. Donaldson is MVPing it, but Freeman is in a slump and Swanson and Riley are too.

The pitching is better. The pen is still pretty solid. Luke Jackson is good. Newcomb keeps the ball in the park and the pickup of Swarzak looks like it may work out. Losing Webb, who's out until later in July, hurts, but there is more hit than miss in guys like Tomlin, Minter and old friend Jerry Blevins to make the pen more reliable than not. The rotation keeps fighting between coming together and falling apart. Keuchel has come in and settled in nicely for the most part and Soroka is still doing well.  Teheran's up and down status fits the number 3 spot better than trying to fit him in 1 or 2, but after that injuryies to Fried and Gausman who were good, and a decent 5th spot inning eater respectively, have left the Braves scrambling a bit. Touki can't get it right and they got one ace and one decent pitcher from their vast minor reserves so far. Asking for more is a bit much. Ian Anderson in AA is probably the best guy in the minors now for them, but if they are winning they'll probably wait until next year to give him both AAA seasoning and of course more team control. However, the Nats might see a Kolby Allard, who rose fast last year and had the bumps then that guys like Wright and BrySe Wilson are having now. He's rebounded finally and might be ready for his second chance.

That gets to the match-ups!  First is Stras vs Teheran. Stras had been a question but looked real good against the Phillies and has done well against the Braves this year. Teheran is a box of chocolates but the Nats seem to handle him well. Then Corbin gets the bad luck of matching up with the ace again. Soroka is the real deal and the Nats lucked out last time (he got hit with a line drive and left the game early). Game 3 is TBD right now but Sanchez is all but set to start that game for the Nats. Sanchez has pitched fine for a while. His best game of the year came against the Braves but his worst game since the Nats started rolling also came against them.  The Braves are a question mark but Allard would naturally slot in here if he's coming, which is what I'm thinking. If it was Kyle Wright he'd probably pitch tonight given his starts.  This leaves Sunday which is a huge question mark. If the Nats and Braves have their ways it will be Max vs Gausman. If they don't it'll be Voth vs Wilson... probably. Though other guys are probably in the mix until they aren't.

ed note - if it is Wright tonight it becomes Nats edge, Nats edge, Braves edge, ? and nothing really changes. You still pick a split. Though I think this works out slightly better for the Nats in theory because the Braves don't counter one of the first two with Soroka meaning the Nats have a good shot at winning first two and putting a ton of pressure on Braves/Soroka in game 3, especially if Max looks ready for G4.  Of course this all holds for as long at 1 game

You give the Nats an edge Game 1, Braves a slight one in Game 2 (they also hit lefties better). Game 3 goes to the Nats again and 4 right now is a toss-up since we know nothing. If Max was definitely starting you might be tempted to give the Nats 3 here. Certainly they'd be favored in 3 and have a good chance of winning Corbin vs Soroka. But since we don't know we definitely can't make that leap. I don't see any reason not to think this will be a split. But the onus is on the Nats to win tonight. Lose tonight and suddenly you NEED Max in there to have the split be the likely outcome again.

Nats Sweep : ATL 58-43, WSN 54-44.  It's a whole new race.

Nats win 3-1 : ATL 59-42, WSN 53-45.  Nats gain a couple of games and we start to look at the next match-up in 7 days and if the Nats are going to make some moves between now and then to make a serious move on the division.

SPLIT : ATL 60-41, WSN 52-46.  We start to play the series by series game. Can they make a run on Colorado? If they don't can they sweep LA? What happens next ATL series?

Braves win 3-1 : ATL 61-40, WSN 51-47.  Tough to see the Nats taking the East. Time to take stock of WC position

Braves Sweep : ATL 62-39, WSN 50-48. Race is effectively over. Nats are probably not even in the playoffs if the season ended that day. Big question if they should bother doing anything with 10 more tough games lined up that look like they'll push Nats under .500

Why Gomes? Why no Kendrick?

Two things have become clear over the course of this season.  Yan Gomes can't hit anymore.  Howie Kendrick wasn't done in by his injury and can still hit.  Yet four games into the 2nd half and the Nats line-up have been a lot like they were leading into the All-Star Break.  We've seen Gomes twice and Suzuki twice as they have pretty much split time and Kendrick hasn't managed to start a game yet (though I'd suspect we'll see him tonight). While it could be written off as "resting the guys for later" I think these are two unique situations.

The Gomes situation is hard to read because catching is hard to read. It's a unique position that's difficult to evaluate defensively and a lot of the reason some guys play is because starting pitchers like them. This has been my conceit with Gomes. If he's putting up a 53 OPS+ and playing about 50% of the time, the starters must like him. If you are curious I think I went over it in a comment or tweet but the catching match-ups work like this right now

Sanchez goes with Suzuki
Corbin goes with Gomes
Max used to go with Gomes, but now goes with Suzuki
Stras and the 5th starter mix it up with a little more reliance on Gomes than Suzuki.

I mean there's rest for Suzuki, but every third game should be sufficient. Or even 60%. Other than the pitcher preference I'm not sure what would spur on this split we're seeing. And assuming it's that - I think it's fair to say "OK we can cover for this one position that doesn't hit a few games a week". Starter comfort is nothing to be messed with. This isn't ideal but the ideal situation would be "Gomes hits a lot better" or "Pitchers love Suzuki". Neither of those are reality so the Nats are working with what they got. I think it's fine for now, as long as we see more Kurt during a run coming up. He did play back to back games twice in the ARI PHI ATL stretch in June (Gomes had them after that). If that happens again now during ATL COL LA ATL then great. I think they got something right here.


The Kendrick situation is unfortunate.  He can't really play OF anymore. If you were to play him - you'd want him in left, but left is where Soto plays and frankly Soto, as we've discussed, is no good. You don't want to shift him over to right every few games when you are hoping something catches on with him in left. I suppose Kendrick plays left when Soto sits, but how often do you really want Soto sitting? In fact Kendrick hasn't played OF all year. So don't expect this.

So if the OF is out - that's fine Kendrick can play 1B and muddle through 2B and 3B. With 3B well - that's like taking Soto out. You might rest Rendon a game every month, maybe. He hasn't had a day off yet since returning and I don't see any reason to make him take one. So consider 3B pretty much out except for a couple of random starts between here and season's end. Like two.

Once Rendon was back Kendrick appeared in games by playing against LHP at first and coming in occasionally at 2B.  He'd probably only play say every other game like that but toss in a few DH stints and it felt like just enough. But then Zimm came back and he needed the time against LHP at first. If you want Zimm back into the swing of things you simply can't give him more than a random day off for a while and in fact he's played against every LHP and some RHP so far, basically splitting time with Adams.  All that's left right now for Kendrick is 2B. The Nats like what they have with Dozier. He holds down 2B well especially since neither Zimm or Adams are particularly good fielders at 1B. He's also been hitting just well enough to keep playing. So Kendrick is effectively squeezed out.

I suspect that once we see Zimm get comfortable - maybe in a week or two - we'll see a more set rotation for Kendrick. Something like over the course of 10 games he'll play 1B once and 2B twice. But beyond that he's an extra piece. If you want to look at it from a positive angle, that's a good problem to have. "Oh where do we play this good hitter who can't field" It's a problem good teams SHOULD have.

Now if the offense begins to struggle against the upcoming decent team stretch, will I be annoyed if Kendrick still isn't playing? Yes. But the Nats are winning and as long as they keep doing that it gives them the cover to do what they want. Which includes sitting the better hitting Kendrick so the better fielding Dozier can play and Zimm can get his recovery at bats.

Don't screw it up - Part 2

The next 16 days feature 16 games, the last 14 against two of the best teams in baseball and another that is decent. The only break the Nats catch is that most of this stretch will be at home.  Still it's a brutal stretch and while it likely won't decide the Nats playoff fate entirely it could decide their NL East fate.

The Nats just opened up the 2nd half by beating the Phillies on the road. They also fell 1.5 further out of first place because the Braves have won 4 in a row. Now they stand at 7.5 back of the Braves and a bad run will leave them well behind going into August.  Impossibly behind? No. Historic comeback behind? Possibly. Go 2-5 or 1-6 and they'll likely be over 10 games out at the start of August. I don't think it's too much to say you can start gearing up for All Wild Card Race All the time. (In fact even 6+ out is probably enough but we'll deal with that at the appropriate time)

Around that these games will help set up the circumstances of the big Braves series and first off is two against the Orioles that they frankly can't lose. Not because they can't afford it schedule wise but because the Orioles are a garbage team and the Nats should beat them.


The Nats offense is still stumbling a bit. Rendon and Soto had a good series, so did Robles. I've been trying to say this for a while but the Nats offense is just not quite clicking and I think it's carrying over. Not that it's bad - it's been good enough in fact. But good enough won't cut it... eventually. The staff has been fine so far, with the bullpen doing it's job for all but one inning against the Phillies.

The Orioles are a bad hitting team with terrible pitching.  They are actually decent against LHP but may not face one. Voth tonight. Maybe Fedde tomorrow? Strasburg? Either way not a lefty. So they should be contained. Contain the offense and you win because the pitching is terrible. The bullpen is top to bottom bad with one guy Paul Fry reaching "ok I can see him on a major league staff as bullpen filler" level. And he's not good, he's just got a skill (inducing GBs) and does it so well you can work with it. They have some live arms like Givens, the assumed closer, and Armstrong but no one you can rely on regularly.

Which brings us to tonight! Because the other starter is Wojciechowski, who fits the "live arm you can't rely on" bill to a T AND they have to rely on him to try to get 5 innings. At his best "Woj" can strike you out and not walk too many but he can't overcome the fact that he also gives up way too many homeruns. At 30, he's generously org filler who for the Orioles means like 4th starter. If the Nats can hit their 2-3 homers with someone on base (which is quite possible because he isn't great with control and can be hit) it should be an easy win even if Voth gives up a little.  The next day the Nats get Aaron Brooks who has decent control... and that's it. He doesn't strike anyone out, gives up way too many hits and homers. He's also 29.  Ugh. This is terrible.  I guess occasionally things work out and they don't hit a homer and keep hitting it where they is and he gets a win but most likely he'll get knocked out in the 3rd or so, with the Orioles only hoping he can go 4.

The Nats should win and no excuses for the offense. They should beat up on this team scoring 6+ each game.

Kick this stretch off right.

Monday Quickie - mission accomplished and OH NO

First things first - the Nats did what they needed to do AGAIN. Went on the road to a division rival and won the series. Sure they were one run away from a sweep which might have tailspun the Phillies. They also were one out away from a series loss and losing two games in ground toward the Braves.  All the pitching was solid. All the hitting was enough - though again - and I keep saying this. the hitting isn't doing too hot and it could really cost the Nats over the next couple of weeks. 11 runs in three games against a mediocre pitching staff is not heartening.

What's up next? The Orioles and 2 games they should win. Even a split would be disappointing.

But even if the Nats had swept the Phillies that wouldn't have been the big story of the weekend. The BIG STORY is Max is hurt. The timeline isn't worrisome yet but it does start you down that road.

Max pitched great against the Royals then begged out of playing in the All-Star game on Sunday, citing back stiffness. The team said "Great! Perfect Timing! We'll even throw in a couple extra days off and not have you kick-off the 2nd half, but instead catch that third Phillies game. That's a full week off!" But on Friday night things still weren't right and Max said the Phillies series was out, but starting in Baltimore (Tomorrow or Wednesday) would likely happen. Then Saturday he was put on the DL retroactive to Jul 10th, meaning he couldn't pitch in Baltimore and would hopefully catch the third of 4 ATL games.

So again
July 7th - can't pitch the 9th
July 12th - can't pitch the 14th
July 13th - can't pitch until the 20th.

Right now I'll be cautiously optimistic. Pitching the 20th means out two weeks but because of the break it's only really one missed start if you want to see it that way (ATL game will be game 8 of the 2nd half).   Better to be cautious now and maybe lose a start vs PHI, who you are clearly better than, then lose him for at least two games against Atlanta and Los Angeles.

But miss the ATL series entirely and things get dicier. Because now he's missed two starts, two division starts versus rivals, and you know that isn't happening because of being careful. That's happening because somethings wrong.

Baltimore series preview and the start of a 16 game slog tomorrow!

It's Go Time (or stop time, depending)

A couple quick things before we get into the Phillies.

With Bubba Starling getting called up, it brought renewed attention to the 2011 draft which was a hell of a draft. In recent times it's probably just passes the 2005 draft for the best, though that gap will probably widen with time. But those drafts are important because they signify the first and last drafts in the Nats... say "building window" where the Nats almost always had single digit picks. So 2 out of the 7 drafts when the Nats were looking to put together a franchise were historic. That's some good luck. Also let's not forget that when they found themselves with back to back #1 picks the picks those years were thought to be generational talents. That's some good luck too. Suffice to say that things came up Nats pretty much right when they needed it to.

I say this in part because of something from the comments yesterday. I noted that once Kieboom is up for good, which should be September at the latest, there is no one in the Nats organization that I will place a bet on being a good major leaguer.  This hasn't been the case for me since before Strasburg was drafted. (For those of you not around then there was a lot of trying to convince Nats fans of the talent of Kory Casto and Chris Marrero).  Stras begat Bryce begat Rendon begat Giolito begat Robles begat Kieboom* begat... ?

It was supposed to be Luis Garcia, but his AA perfomance has been poor. At his age it's not anything that would make you write off him making the majors. The fact he was so young and doing well in A ball that that is why he was supposed to be next. He could be two years older and you would still be ready to give him another year of evaluation in AA.  But this season does take him off the "next up" track and puts him back to merely an intriguing prospect.**

I don't mean this to be an indictment on the Nats drafting acumen. More to say - drafting is hard and the Nats, when they needed to draft well, got a handful of breaks in terms of the talent available when they were drafting. Sometimes it pays to be lucky as well as good.


On to the Phillies series.

Offense 
 Since the Phillies series the primary story for the Nats was that Rendon and Soto keep hitting but the offense had been cooling. The Royals series though, with some poor pitching to feast on seems to have righted the ship. There's been promising developments - Dozier hitting better, Robles hitting better, Zimm doing ok upon return. But Kendrick, Adams, and of course Gomes struggling. There are ways to juggle it so none of those guys plays but it's going to be a bit of a guessing game on who's hot or not here and it may effect the Nats scoring. On the Phillies side you begain to see some waking up. Yes, Bryce was hitting but so were Bruce and Hoskin and Realmuto. Even Segura was knocking around singles. This was more the offense the Phillies expected to see this year.

Of course how much does the all-star break effect momentum?

Pitching 
I've talked about the relatively easy road for the Nats arms but you can only evaluate based on what's been done.  To that effect Grace and Guerra are currently holding down the pen. Doolittle, Sipp, and Rodney have had good results but the stats are shakier on them.  It's still not a full pen.  The Phillies pen has gotten some excellent performances recently, most importantly from a returning Tommy Hunter. The bad news is they've come from random guys. Arms like Nicasion and Morgan who they were more expecting to lean on have been bad. It's a worse version of the guessing game the Nats have to do with the lineup. There using the wrong guys might lose production, here they might lose games.

The starters for the Nats are going to be Stras, Corbin, and Max and the reset after ASG matches up exactly with the Phillies series. No hard decisions required. Max has been dominant against the chumps, but so has Corbin - who's pitched to a 0.96 ERA in his last 4 games. Stras has been shakier only looking great in his very last start on July 3rd. For the month of June he actually put up a 5.70 ERA, gave up 6 homers and watched the other team slug nearly .500 against him.

The Phillies counter with Pivetta, Nola, and likely Arrieta. Pivetta is all over the place. He came back from the minors awesome (3 hit 6IP 0ER vs Dodgers!) but recently he's looked like the guy who got sent down. He's given up 9 homers in his last 4 games. If he was pitching on normal rest I'd expect the Nats to shell him but the extended rest makes him a complete Wild Card in my book.  Nola has finally seen a return to form pitching to an 0.61 ERA in HIS past four games. Arrieta might be pitching injured and frankly was only ok when he wasn't. Rest may help him and he did handle the Nats pretty well last time, but there were a lot of ball hit where they were that may not happen again.


The match-ups don't look as favorable to me this time. The Nats are hitting better then they have been, but the Phillies are hot. The Phillies pen isn't in great shape but neither is the Nats. The Max game against the gimpy Arrieta is a pencilled in win, but the other two are more toss-ups then you might have thought.  Still, even in Philly, you like the Nats taking two of three here and gaining another game on at least the Phillies.

*Soto? He passed Robles all while we still liked Robles.  He's a chain bypasser.  

**Another way to look at it is if Garcia doesn't have a strong finish he's likely to drop in the prospect rankings. That's something none of the other guys really did. Ok technically Robles did but that was more people passing him than an indictment on him. Going from like 5 to 10 isn't bad. Giolito did at the end too but after four seasons of increasing expectations. No one went from "oooh let's look at this guy" to "eh maybe not". That's more of an AJ Cole experience

Three to get to fourteen with a two opener

The Nats schedule before the break presents them with great opportunity but it is not kind.  They will open at PHI for 3, then get a day off, then play 16 games in a row with no break. It's not a terribly taxing trip travel wise - BAL to ATL to DC, but anytime you play that many games in a row you open up the possibility of things getting out of whack.

We've talked about "an average team" recently and you figure this stretch an average team would love to go 10-9. The Nats are now aiming higher than that but 12-7 is a lofty goal. 11-8 is where I sit. You win both at BAL, either win the PHI series in PHI or split the ATL in ATL, take 6 of 10 at home with some combo of outcomes. 11-8 against this run would be a decent run indeed.  Where would 11-8 put the Nats?

58-50. Which is ok. Let's assume the beat Philly in Philly and beat ATL at home but split with ATL in ATL.  ATL... back of the envelope 9-9 so 63-46.  Philly...  9-8? 56-51   Cubs 10-7, 57-50. Brewers 10-8. 57-52...

This combination would have the Nats 4.5 games out of first, but with a 1.5 game lead on the WC over PHI and MIL. Let me check ARI... oooh looks a little easy... not easy enough though to definitely propel them past anyone.

OK that's a good estimate of where they Nats should be. You can see though a lot of variation. If the Nats go 9-10 and let's say that happens specifically because they lose the PHI series at PHI and ATL series the Nats would be 56-52. That's not terrible. But the Braves would be 64-45. 7.5 games up and close to effectively safe. The Phillies would be 57-50 and the ones with a 1.5 game lead on the Nats.

I'm getting lost in the weeds here a little but the general sense is that the

1. The Nats will still be in it, by the trade deadline, especially so in the next week assuming they don't get swept by Philly and then they catch those 2 Orioles games they should win. So they should be active.
2. The most likely scenario is the Nats continue to make modest gains. 11-8 would be great. 10-9 is also very much in play.
3. Big gains (12+ wins) are unlikely, big losses (12+ losses) even more so, but even small losses (going 9-10 or 8-11) could have big effects. 
4. Since there are a lot of H2H division games it does matter who beats who

It's a fascinating set of games really because right off the bat the Nationals, if they were to sweep Philly in Philly, would put the Phillies in a hard position. Nearly .500, probably trailing 2-3 teams for a WC spot... it's hard to see them leaning into a big trade deadline move. Then with 2 games against Baltimore the Nats should be close enough to catch the Braves in the next series. Granted that would require a 4 game sweep in ATL and this would be rolling off 9 wins in a row and no one expects it - but it COULD happen.  Flip it though and have the Phillies sweep the Nats and the Nats stumble and lose one to the Os and now the Nats are just over .500 trailing 2-3 teams in the WC and getting ready to head to ATL where they will likely lose 3 and fall under .500 and probably clam up at the deadline.

SO MUCH CAN HAPPEN. It usually doesn't BUT IT COULD!

I'm very excited here.

Nats at Midseason

Let's run through the players

NO CONCERN

Max - heading toward another Cy Young, stamping his 1st ballot HOF entry pass, and generally being awesome and the best thing about this team

Strasburg - Last year was a little off for Straburg but the first part of this year is on the same path that he's been following since he came back from Tommy John (that's right the "he needed Max as a #1" stuff is nonsense. But dummies will believe what dummies want to believe.) which is Cy Young vote worthy. And he's hasn't missed time yet!

Corbin - Is he as good as last year? No, and I hope you weren't expecting that. Is he better than 95% of #3s out there and maybe 80% of #2s? Yep.

Rendon - Having his best season at the plate ever

Soto - The guy can't field but he's definitely a star.

Kendrick - Super sub can't hold down a position but also can't be held out of the line-up

Suzuki - Doing what was expected which is hitting well but not playing a lot because pitchers don't like to throw to him I guess? There's a reason a catcher hitting above average can't get a starting job.

MILD CONCERN

Turner - He was out a good bit, so that is always worrisome, but otherwise is fine.

Doolittle - If you are the type that demands a shutdown closer, Doolittle isn't it. But he's good. Right now he's living off his HR/FB rate which he has always kept down but he's giving up more FBs than ever and his walk rate is up. It feels a little precarious looking at fancy stats but really the problem is if he goes the bullpen cannot survive it.

Adams - He's been what you basically want but you'd like him to be even better to force Zimm to the bench if needed.

Robles - Sorry he's not Soto. This is not the season to concern yourself with Robles unless he's terrible and he's not. Still striking out a bit much but overall keeping it around average and anecdotally I feel he's been fielding better.

Eaton - Accept the fact he's truly a Singly Joe and accept that that's ok if he keeps hitting over .300 and walking.

Parra - I mean take what you can get.

MODERATE CONCERN

Dozier - The guy is living off homers which is kind of how he plays. But the Ks are up and man did he look tired as the year ended in 2018.

Zimm - had a couple good games but we all know Zimm runs hot and cold. And that throw home... What to do?

Sanchez - He's been good recently, but the Nats have also been running through some garbage offenses. Against better teams earlier he looked pretty bad.  Much like with Doolittle there's an extra concern that what's behind him can't pick-it up if he fails.

MAJOR CONCERN

Gomes - still can't hit but the pitchers like him so he plays.

Whoever is 5th starter - the Nats have no depth and this needs to be an target area for trade if the Nats do anything.

The rest of the pen - They aren't historically bad but who here gives you confidence? There's still guys in it (Venters now) that shouldn't be but there isn't anyone better to take his place. We all are enjoying Rodney but I assume he'll bust at some point. And again it's been a MIA DET MIA cakewalk recently.



What's the takeaway? The Nats have the holes you know - 5th starter and pen, that are nearly universal in baseball.  They'd be better if they could add some help there. It's especially concerning because 4th starter and closer don't feel as set as they should be and if those go down problems you can get past become season ruining ones. The top of the rotation though is humming along and the line-ups concerns are ones you like to have - how do the Nats use their better players more? Can they convince pitchers to throw to Suzuki? Can the Zimm/Adams situation clear up fast? Can we get Kendrick in as much as they'd like?

It's a strong team that if they can be supported and things go their way shouldn't have issues staying in the WC hunt all season long. The NL East is a tougher road because the Braves are actually good and the Nats dug themselves a big hole but we'll evaluate that as the season goes along. It should clear up one way or another by the end of the month.

Monday Quickie - Exceeding Lowered Expectations

19-31

47-42

It's an amazing 28-11 run that any team should be proud of.  But it did come at a cost. The cost was the Nats easy games.

If you looked now at the Nats schedule you would earmark what games for the "garbage gimme wins" of the season? The Marlins. The Orioles. Knowing the Nats would play the AL Central the Royals and the Tigers. 29 games in all.  Three Marlins games were done by the time 19-31 was "achieved", leaving 26 easy games in the remaining 112 games. That's a pretty nice set - almost a quarter of the remaining games were against teams you'd expect an average team to beat and a good team to dominate.

Today that stands at 10 for the remaining 71. Now only about 1 in 7 games fit that bill. They catch those first Oriole games early so it will quickly be 8 for the remaining 66, or fewer than one in every 8.

Looking at it the other way - after starting 19-31, the Nats had 16 easy games in the 49 games between them and the break. That's one in every three. It was an ideal situation in which to come back. They had that and they had health. There was no excuse NOT to make a run.

But to the Nats credit they didn't merely make a run, they crushed it. They might have lost an extra game to ARI and ATL at home, but they won extra games in sweeps against the Marlins twice, in a two game set at ATL early on, and in that sweep against vs the Phillies. They took 3 of 4 against the Marlins early and in the White Sox split set. That's probably an extra win too. There were no real stumbles. You might have pegged a division winning team to go up to 24-15 here. 28-11 is a real accomplishment. They did everything they had to and more.

Now do it again.

At 19-31 the Nats were staring maybe at the easiest remaining schedule in the NL. In 5 games - whatever their record is - the Nats will likely be staring at maybe the hardest remaining schedule. Maybe the Mets crash and burn can make a difference? True, they are stumbling but the Nats have played the Mets 13 times already.

In a way they will have it in their own hands. 14 games remain against the Braves and if the Nats can win... say 9 of them that will put them in the driver's seat. But 8 of those games are away and the Braves also still have KC, and 7 games against MIA, and 9 games against the Mets, and their set vs the White Sox - who probably aren't good as much as feasting on the Royals and Tigers (13-7 so far) (and if we inlcluded them in the Nats easy games makes the easy/hard schedule disparity even greater). The Nats have Baltimore? The Braves have little better, probably about to sell Toronto. The Nats still have three games against moribund San Fran? So do the Braves, except they get them in Atlanta. Nats have 3 vs Cincy at home left? Braves have 4. 

All that is to say - the Braves have maybe the easiest schedule in the NL from now on so if the Nats want to catch them the Nats will have to do their own work to make it happen. 

New Post just because

I'm on vacation but I hate crowded nulti-day comments. So here's a new post for the Royals series.

The Nats are already at 8 wins so they have reached my target and have a very good chance at meeting anyone's target who wasn't hoping for an 11-1 or immaculate run.  How are the Royals? Not good, but not as bad as the Tigers and Marlins

They niether hit nor pitch well but the offense is merely bad, a half-run plus below average - not the OMG HOW FAR BACK ARE THEY?!?! lineups that the Marlins and the Tigers were putting out there. I think I talked about it before but it's half a line-up with big holes at first, second, short and an outfielder. The rest of the guys are ok but certainly not enough to carry the rest to respectability.  Dozier has been a great hitter for half a season. Merrifield is solid (and will likely be gone in a month) and Jorge Soler is the best bet to strike out 3 times against Max on 9 pitches then hit that 7th inning homer. Gordon, while slumping, is still a major leaguer.  They are a fast team that tries to compensate for the lack of OBP and power, by stealing bases which will be interesting to face too.

The pitching is bad but only a third of a run off the AL average. The Nats face Keller, Sparkman, and Junis. Keller is probably the best of the bunch and is middling. Junis has the best stuff but is also hittable and prone to homers. Sparkman is a guy who let's you put it in play, which is normally good, but not in the air for far distance. The pen reminds me of the Tigers - no one really good (Kennedy the closer is decent) but no one outright terrible. This is bad - because you'd rather have someone good, but it can work in the favor of a good manager - feeling no particular commitment to certain arms in certain situations. You can waste the guys doing poorly on lost games and try to work the guys feeling it when it matters. Is Yost good? Probably not - I see him more as a guy who leaned into having a bunch of guys he could ALL count on. But you know.

The Nats will be favored in all with their worst game (Voth) tonight and their best game (MAX!) tomorrow. They should take two of three and finish this run 10-2 and 47-42.  A sweep would be great. A 1-2 run would be disappointing but fine. Being swept would give a bad finish to what should have been a triumphant run.

Let's see what happens.

The Davey question

The Nats have been the best team in baseball for a month plus.  They just had their second best month ever and they are above .500 and in the thick of the Wild Card race. This turnaround has a lot of people feeling good about the team and feeling good, or at least less bad, about the manager. What do I think?

Fire Davey

What gives me pause is a name from the Nats past, Matt Williams. Handed a mild favorite (remember 2013 did not go well) and a mostly healthy team*, Williams proceeded to guide the Nats to 96 wins (2nd best in baseball), a division title that was wrapped up with at least a month to go. It's not hard to manage when you are given a good team and little resistance.

If you twist my arm I'd say Davey has shown something Matt hasn't - he didn't let it all go to hell, which is what Matt did at the end of 2015. Despite a disappointing 2018 and 50 games of crap in 2019 the team didn't pack it in, he didn't lose the clubhouse** and the Nats have managed to find their way back.

But still look at the above. Thats 200+ games telling me Davey, even if he is learning, isn't right for this team - a team that will forever be aiming for 90 wins, not 95. This year, he lost Trea Turner and managed the team to an 8-7 record as if he was George Brett on the '85 Royals (look it up). He lost Rendon and they were 3-6. Take this team, drop Trea and Rendon and they aren't a playoff team, but a well below .500 mess? No.  A great 30, and they have been great, isn't enough to change my mind.

When could I change my mind. Here's a couple of scenarios

The Nats continue playing this well for basically the rest of the year. Put up an over 100 win pace for a large chunk of the season. Win mid 90s in games in total. Possibly (probably) win the division.

The Nats get into the WC - then make the World Series.  If your goal is winning playoff series, you can't really count the WC game, and the DS could be a fluke, but the WC, DS, and CS? Ok you got me.

There you go - that's where I keep Davey. Now of course there are split the difference type scenarios. Nats win low 90s are WC1 and go to the CS... ok probably keep him. But in general I don't want to see him back unless the Nats do something special either baseball wise (playing like this for 112 games would qualify) or for their franchise (winning a few playoffs series). 



*He'd lose Ramos and Bryce, and the team would go a disappointing 8-9. He'd lose Zimm at the end, which when added to the cooling bats from a lot of players would doom the Nats playoff chances. 

**though I think the lack of a certain scraggly bearded OF matters a lot there.

Monday Quickie - doing the job

The Nats didn't keep the winning streak alive, but they did win the series, as they should, not "giving back" the game they picked up in sweeping the Marlins. They are on a roll and while AGAIN I'll mention the work is far from over - they are at least still working.

Since the Nats have comfortably settled into winning as they should - a little bit more than that actually - but not historic fans thmselves are kind of getting settled. Outside the usual and deserved Max love sessions, other things are being lost like...


Zimm is back! The question is how much to play him. In Detroit it was fine because of thee DH but back in DC it becomes an issue. If Zimm plays first in a platoon with Adams, that kicks Kendrick off off the bag and over to second. That's ok, but Kendrick isn't the fielder that Dozier is.  If Zimm takes over again as the main, first baseman, that robs Adams of some at bats. Neither of these guys have been great recently but they both have been decent and had key hits and homers. The fact that they haven't been great gives Davey some cover but the Nats don't have leeway to let Zimm have a couple weeks to get back into the rhythm of the season. He needs to hit. If not this week against the last of these easy teams, then as soon as the Nats come out of the All-Star Break.

MAT is gone! To AAA actually.  Did Dusty work him the best? Or was he just a beneficiary of MATs best prime year season? Probably a little of both. But a MAT with limited playing time is clearly not good at the plate. He's almost certain to be back in a couple months when rosters expand and they need a fielder, or if someone goes down. Of course the question is - right now do they need another PH bat like Parra more than they need MAT's late game fielding? My guess is no, but we will find out over the next few weeks I guess.

The Nats offense slowed way down in the past week, putting up a .233 / .306 / .408 line. It's been hidden though because the runs have kept coming at least versus the Marlins. Against Miami they packed hits into innings. In game 1, 7 of their 10 baserunners came in two innings, yeilding 6 runs. 5 hits, and 2 homers came in one 5 run inning. In game 2, they had 15 baserunners - 5 in the 4 run 6th and 5 more in the 3 run 9th. In game 3 6 of the 12 came in their big 5 run inning. In some respects this is how you score - but in a larger macro sense it shouldn't work out for you like this every game - that half your baserunners come in one inning. There's more of a distribution across innings and based on that line they've put up? Fewer runs. Only Rendon and Soto are hitting right now so there may be more close games, win or lose, in these next 6 than you are probably expecting. Or maybe they just have a killer instinct right now?

Dozier has been particularly bad so I would expect a healthy dose of Kendrick at 2nd.

While it'll be interesting to see if Venters and Rodney can keep being effective, it's the re-birth of Wander Suero that is more important. He gives the Nats the all important reliable 2nd arm behind Doolittle for important points in the game or the 8th inning. Unfortunately Davey is treating him as just a set-up guy but if it works, ok.  Just hope there aren't games blown before they get to him. (like there have been across this time frame)

.500!

Ok let's be honest. If you were told that the Nats would be .500 half way through the season your reaction would have been. "Ugh. That sucks" and it does! But we can't dwell on it now.  We instead move to what would have been your follow up questions*. "How's the division going?" to which the answer is "Not great" and "Are the Nats still in the playoff hunt?", to which the answer is "Yes"! 

They are still 2.5 games out of the WC (this will happen as we talked about when there are a half-dozen teams ahead of you - not ALL can lose at the same time) You can't make it up all at one time. But we have learned if you hand Davey a healthy team (only Hellickson and Zimm out) and an easy schedule (this 30 game run featured 7 games vs MIA, 4 vs the White Sox, and 3 vs Cincy along with 8 against San Diego and Arizona, though you know I like Arizona) he can win! Kind of the 2014 Matt Williams Rule. What we still need to see is how Davey and this bunch can play against good teams - and they'll get that chance after the ASB

@PHI (@BAL for 2) @ATL vCOL vLAD vATL @ARI

tha's a stretch of 22 games with 2 easy games in it. There's a run in there from the BAL games through the ATL games with 16 games and no days off either. That will probably define the season.**

But first you got to get there and up now is Detroit. Detroit is bad (26-50) and not unlucky about it (pythag 23-53). It's almost a little shame that the Nats are catching these teams NOW - where they may be showcasing the best players for trades, as opposed to a month from now when they should be depleted and possibly worse. Oh well. 

You know how the Marlins were by far the worst offense in the NL? Well the Tigers are even more by far the worst offense in the AL.  They score fewer runs than the Marlins. And they have a DH! The next best team (the Orioles) score more than a half-run more per game! They literally have two decent hitters in JaCoby Jones and probably pretty good Nick Castellanos but what's he going to do here. Miggy is on his last legs still making contact but sadly generating no power (.290 average, .380 SLG). They have a handful of below average guys you never heard of and them some worse than that.  They currently have four starters just doing terribly.

The pitching, while bad, is not the worst. The pen is ok-ish. Mainly they are propped up by a couple of starters doing well. Do the Nats catch either? Nope. Tonight they get Daniel Norris - one time big time prospect who hasn't lived up to that. He hasn't had a great game all year and mostly throws up oo short games where he only gives up 2-3 runs but can't get out of the 6th, mixed in with a clunker every few games. The Tigers are currently without a starter for Saturday, recent days off let them go with a 4 man rotation for a bit.  They have tried both Ryan Carpenter and Gregory Soto and they have been bad and really bad respectively. Tim Adleman, will probably fill the 5th starter roll for the Tigers eventually (he's old, not good, but not the worst, and can fill innings - perfect 5th guy for a bad team) but he pitched Tuesday.  Sunday is likely Zimmermann who has yet to manage a full season for the Tigers since signing that deal. He's hurt his neck (gets injections for it I think still), his groin, got hit in the face with a line drive, and this year finally it took a toll on the arm. Injuries kids, they build up. He's just an innings eater now who occasionally has runs when his body is feeling ok.

It's not as quite set-up for the sweep as the three best starters against a bad Miami team in a place they play horribly. But the Tigers are worse hitters, the Nats face worse starters, and they also do poorly at home.  It's only JUST slightly worse jsut because we still can't trust Sanchez or Voth not to get rocked.


*after "What happened?" of course

**If the Nats are in it down the the wire Sept is pretty brutal as they catch CLE and MIN then. They also end the year with 10 games in 9 days thanks to the Philly rainouts. But we're just starting to look two weeks ahead, let's not worry about over two months right now. 

Keeping on

The Nats won the first two of the "should be a sweep, must be a win" Marlins series, ensuring them of a series win. Now they go for the "extra" game with Strasburg on the mound.

I've seen people say that the Nats need to win more than 8 games during this stretch, 9-3 or even 10-2. That's kind of crazy. The formula for success for division winning teams is pretty simple. Win 2 out of every 3 games against bad teams (basically win those series) and win 1 out of every 2 games against good teams (win series at home, lose them away).  If you have an equal number of good and bad teams you'll end up on a 94-95 win pace.  True the slow start means the Nats have to pick things up but they have already done some of that. They won at a 2 out of 3 pace in the 27 games coming into this stretch* against good teams and bad. That gives them leeway to simply play as a division winning team the rest of the way.  That would give them 86-87 wins.  Is that enough? Maybe! Right now WC2 is on an 85 win pace. I expect that to pick up but we can evaluate needs more as the season progresses. 8-4 keeps them on track.  That's all they need right now.

For the Nats - they should put their heads down, win the games in front of them, and occasionally check on the landscape of the league. They aren't in position yet to check out what other teams are doing and even if they squeak into a WC spot by ASB - better to keep doing what you are doing and not worry about everyone else until you have to.

But that's for the Nats. You don't have to do this. What is your fandom going to get distracted and you aren't going to cheer like you should at the games in front of you? So now that some teams are 81 games in let's check out the teams the Nats will be fighting for playoffs spots.

Atlanta - currently 48-33, pythag 45-36, 18-6 in June, 7-3 in the last 10.   What's to say? Atlanta is now on a 96 win pace and is good. Their offense lacks a second star behind Freeman, but Albies, Acuna, or Riley could all make that step, or perhaps the older Donaldson has a run in him. They have good enough depth. They brought in Kuechel to round out the rotation. If they have an issue it's that the back end of the bullpen is solid though not spectacular, and the deep bullpen has issues but there's no reason to knock them far off 96 wins. If that's the case, and you are aiming for the Nats to win the division, then yes 10-2 is what they need here because they'll probably have to be the best team in baseball the rest of the way to catch the Braves

Dodgers - 55-27 (54-28), 16-8, 7-3 we should ignore the Dodgers because they are going to win the West and not fall into the WC race, but for completeness they are the best team in baseball. The offense does have a couple holes but 1-6 is as strong as any team with the worst of the bunch still good. The rotation is best in baseball. The bullpen is 5 deep.

Cubs - 43-27 (46-34), 12-13, 4-6. The Cubs are the next team up but have enough issues you can see them falling back. Three guys, Almora, Descalso, and Zobrist are doing poor enough that they are having real issues filling 2B and CF.  The rotation is ok, but big name acquisitions Darvish and Quintana have never developed into the aces the Cubs though. The bullpen is ok too but it's got the usual back end issues. Really they are waiting for Kimbrel here which could nail it down. If I were to rate all the teams the Cubs would be the last team better than the Nats, but it's close.

Brewers 42-38 (39-41), 10-12, 3-7.  The Brewers can't get going. Offensively Yelich is now a verified superstar, Moustakas is having a rebirth and Grandal is showing everyone (including the Nats) that yes, they should have signed him. But Aguilar, Shaw, and Cain are all dramatically worse giving them nothing more than a .500 offense. The pitching is in a similar boat with a bunch of guys doing worse than last year, but that's less surprising giving the names. Bullpen is ok - would be better if they didn't have to throw so many innings (10% more than any other NL team). There's a potential for an offensive breakout and if they do trade for Bumgarner the team could be very good again, but as of now it's .500 or bust

Phillies 42-38 (40-40),  9-14,  3-7.  Another .500 team for the season. We talked a lot about this team but suffice to say every offensive player except Kingery is between mildy and majorly disappointing, though Bruce has been a good pick up. With Nola not pitching like a star the rotation doesn't work, as it's a bunch of 3-4-5s.  Bullpen is actually not terrible but it hasn't been good lately and it certainly isn't team saving.  This team needed pitching and hitting. It got one and is suffering as that one fails to carry the team.

Colorado 42-38 (42-38), 13-11, 5-5.  You may have seen me mention that Desmond and Murphy were doing much better. The Rockies are always going to score runs but early on, with those guys struggling the offense couldn't work even in Denver's thin air. Now it's back to Rockies as usual. Still it's not an offense that will scare anyone away. It's half a line-up. On the flip side the pitching staff is as expected terrible but taking the same things into account as with the line-up the bullpen looks pretty good. The rotation though is not. They have a couple good arms and a lot of bad ones.

Cardinals 40-39 (40-39),  12-11, 5-5.  The strength of the Carindals is their pen which is almost completely filled with usable arms and even with their preferred closer, Hicks, injured, they are very good. The rotation ahead of them is pretty mediocre but outside of that last starter they are all usable and the last guy is Wacha who'd you'd expect to be better. The lineup is not good, a mix of mediocre and below average bats. The saving grace is that only Molina is outright terrible (and Wieters is back to being worse than that) but all that means is they are the worst lineup of teams trying to make the playoffs. It's a team that could quickly get better through trade but it would mean kicking out guys they've relied on for a while : Molina, Wong, Carpenter. Not sure they will do it but if they will they could vault to the top of the WC set.

Diamondbacks 41-41 (45-37), 13-11, 3-7.  The D-backs are a snakebit team (ha!) having a terrible record in 1 and 2 run games (14-22) holding back what should be a solid WC team. Their offense is very good, kind of one good bat switched for a below average one from the Braves. Their rotation doesn't quite have an ace, Grienke is slowing down at 35, but goes 5 deep when healthy. Right now though it's just 3 deep. The pen is ok with the back end very strong but the rest weak. Honestly they are a lesser Braves team, though with a better back end of the pen. I'd expect a run from this squad more than any other up here.

Padres 40-40 (37-43), 10-13, 6-4. The Padres are the anti-Dbacks, looking at an 18-9 record in one run games that hides the fact they aren't really a contender - or at least haven't played like one. The offense is a beast through 5 batters, then joke at the bottom. As it stands now, pitchers can and do work around this. The starting pitching is just allright, with some surprises making the first half interesting, but that shouldn't hold up and the bullpen isn't good enough to hold on.  Most likely I see another selling of parts from this team come July to gear up for the real try at the playoffs in 2020.

oh to be fair -
Nationals 39-40 (41-38), 15-7, 7-3.  The offense can be good, the only real hole is Gomes and when Kendrick and Suzuki is in it's a deep line-up. When they are out it isn't but it isn't bad, just kind of average and top heavy.  The top 3 in the rotation are are good as any teams, but the back end, especially the 5th spot, has the expected problems. Anibal is kind of the key here. The bullpen has been better but that just means they've found some usable arms in front of Doolittle, not that they have a bullpen to worry about. Still if Sanchez is good, they have to be used less and everything kind of fits in. It's a good starter away sort of from really becoming a machine. 


What I see here is three teams right now better than the Nats - Braves, Dodgers, and Cubs, and the Cubs just barely. Out of the WC teams the Diamondbacks are about as good and I think they can stay ahead of the Nats, especially if the Padres come crashing down and give them another set of easy games. The Cardinals and Brewers both have real potential for passing the Nats (if the Nats do nothing). I see the Brewers showing more commitment to that than the Cardinals though. The Phillies are next - and I'd rank them as an annoyance. Not bad enough to dismiss and with a bunch of H2H games to go. The Rockies have to be paid attention to if only because it's a fluky place to play and things might happen. The Padres should fold.

I can see why the Nats are favored. If you twisted my arm I might have them in the playoffs (with the D-backs) but I won't say it just yet. I want to see two things (1) I want them to get to the ASB without stumbling - so far so good. and (2) I want to see what teams do after the ASB in terms of trades, including the Nats. If the Cardinals, Brewers, Phillies are still ahead of them and all get better? The Nats chances take a severe dive. If the Nats have passed them and make a move? Let's get wild.

But for now we wait. We watch. We hope they don't screw it up. It's worked for almost 30 games now. 10 more.

*exactly so going 18-9

The Marlins

Next up for the Nats is the Marlins. The Marlins actually are a decent pitchng team.  Even with three guys donw for injury they had the minor league depth to bring up some decent arms to replace them.  The Nats will face Trevor Richards - a normal veteran starter who is perfectly ok; Zac Gallen, a rookie who wasn't a major prospect but has done well at every level and looked major league ready in his first ever start; and Sandy Alcantara,who was a propsect and since being beat by the Nats a month ago has gotten great results in 5 starts.  This is not the easiest group to take on. Backing that up is an unimpressive, borderline functional bullpen. The Nats will always have a shot late but if one unimpressive arm isn't on, Mattingly can always try another to find who's good tonight. It's a bunch of C- arms.

The problem for the Marlins is that this decent staff is balanced by a terrible lineup, the lowest scoring line-up in the NL a good third of a run lower than the 2nd worst Giants,who themselves are a good half a run worse than the 3rd worst Reds. In other words - they are garbage. Making things worse is two of their better hitters - Neil Walker and Jorge Alfaro are currently out and may not play this series. This leaves them with distant 4th place ROY vote getter Brian Anderson - who's fine and Garret, almost certainly a fluke, Cooper, who has been great in limited play.  Both these guys are hot which is something I guess. Holaday and Riddle are both hot too but are average bats at best. Granderson is washed up. Castro doesn't want to be here. Brinson looks like a never-was. 3rd to last in average, 2nd to last in OBP, last in SLG (last in homers by 10, 35 fewer than 12th place STL, who themselves are only 40 behind 1st place Milwaukee. They have no patience. They have no power. They put the ball in play but with no power and no one on base to open holes all that means is a lot of outs. There's nothing here other than a real chance at a no-hitter from Max, Corbin, and/or Strasburg.

The Nats really should sweep this, even with it being in Miami*, but we are setting the goal merely at winning each series, so 2-1 is the bar.

As for yesterday - I may have been overestimating the Phillies, but it's been more a horrid stretch now then way overplaying before June. I still think all these bats can't stay below their averages for the whole season - but maybe Kapler's leadership can prove me wrong.

While we talk about the Nats crawling back into it - winning 8 of 12 in this set to get them to the point where we can merely plan out what needs to be done after the All-Star break to get into the playoffs (basically play like this for 8 of the last 10 weeks against a tougher schedule - with perhaps reinforced opponents with the Nats unlikely to be as reinforced) the Nats are still walking that tightrope and at any moment the season could be over.  What would do them in here? Anything 6-6 or lower and I'd put the fork in them, assuming all else equal**


*The Marlins are actually far worse at home FWIW. 

**If the WC teams in the lead go 4-8 and 3-9 and the Braves 1-11 well of course we don't write them off with a 6-6 but we have to assume teams keep on as they have been this season

Monday Quickie - Don't screw it up

27 games later the Nats have made it to the last stretch of their journey back to relevance. They ran through a relatively easy part of their schedule to start, going 14-7 versus the likes of Cincinnati and the White Sox. They overall won enough games at home versus the NL East rivals to keep them alive. Now comes the straight up easiest part of their schedule, 12 games with bad teams with nothing to play for leading right into the All-Star Break.  A good team wins all these series. A good team goes 8-4 or better.  Nats go 8-4 or better and they are over .500, likely no more than 3 games out with 1 team between them and the team in the 2nd WC.  It's not an ideal position but the Nats have been fighting off "SEASON OVER" for over 4 weeks now. This is what they did to themselves.

The series at home suggest the Nats are better than the Phillies, enough so that as of right now you don't see any reason the Nats can't pass them in the standings. You don't want to get complacent though. The Nats have been bitten by the "right now" bug before - watching a Mets team not as good as they were trade for Cespedes, become equals, and then knock the 2015 Nats from the playoff picture. And you don't want to think this is enough. The Phillies are an upper 80s team at best. With some poor luck or managing they are a low-mid 80s team. Beating that doesn't mean the playoffs.

The series at home also suggest the Nats aren't better than the Braves. The difference isn't enough that if you started the season over that you couldn't imagine the Nats winning the East. However, it IS enough to make you believe that overcoming an 8.5 game deficit in half a season is not worth planning for.  No the Nats need to keep an eye on the WC and hope that while they are climbing back into that race, two teams don't separate themselves from the pack. Sometimes teams do go 10-2. If the wrong two do it while the Nats are going 8-4 the season may end despite the Nats doing what they need to.

But you can't worry about that. It's head down, take care of business, see where you are for another two weeks. 8-4.  Do it.

Other Notes

Rosenthal is gone. After two decent outings to coming back from "injury" Rosenthal started to lose it again last week versus the D-backs. He had a 4 pitch one out outing as they eased him back in but Saturday he couldn't find the strike zone again walking the three men he faced on 15 pitches and that was that.  After his first few outings in April it was apparent that Rosenthal was not ready to pitch. He needed more time to clear up, if possible, whatever issues a year long lay-off had created. A long minor league stint, maybe months, was the prescription. But the Nats didn't have the luxury of letting him do that. He held a roster spot and every day he was in the minors was a day that they couldn't fill that with someone.  He could go on the 60 day DL I suppose but then he couldn't rehab in the minors. No the Nats were stuck - they had to release him and now maybe he'll get the minor league deal he honestly needs.

This was a big screw-up by Rizzo. It was supposed to be a low-risk, high-reward deal for both parties. If he was merely ok, he'd get paid like it and fill a bullpen role. No one gets hurt. If he was great, Rosenthal would get paid and the Nats would have a dominant reliever. Both win. But it was assumed when they made it that they must have a pretty good idea he was at least ok.  They did not. Given that it was really a high-risk deal with the chance of Rosenthal busting out being at least a possibility and that meaning the Nats wasted (1) the money for a useful bullpen arm and/or (2) the chance to sign a much better arm going after Rosenthal. This was a move the Nats had to have right. They did not.

Some will point out that free agent relievers have been spotty. They usually are. But you can't choose the worst one. That's not a high bar to set for a GM.

Rainey is pushed. We praised Rainey's performance, rightfully, last week. but Davey started leaning on him perhaps too much Rainey would pitch in 4 of 5 days (19, 20, 22, 23) and get progressively worse while doing it.  There are ebbs and flows to a relievers season. You are rarely dominant all the way through so some forgiveness can be made for trying to get a guy to pitch through it. Give him a day off - see if that rights the ship. But after a day off, pitching on the 22nd Rainey still did not look good. The promise of sitting two days should have won out over the hope to squeeze in a decent inning before the off-day. For Davey it didn't. Now you hope Rainey wasn't pushed too hard and that Davey and circumstance can keep him from pitching tomorrow. 

Almost There

Almost There!

Actually though I love that animation this is the money song from that movie. 

This will be quick bc work is work but the Nats are almost there. After playing like one of the worst teams in baseball for 50 games, they've played like one of the best for the past 24* going 17-7.  They haven't quite made up the ground but they are just a couple weeks away from it.  What do they have to do now? Let's review. It's pretty simple actually.

1. Don't get swept by the Braves
2. Beat up on the bad teams before the break 

The plan would be go at least 1-2 in these 3, then go 8-4 in the following four series. Get to one over .500 at the break. Beat Miami (27-46) away. Beat Detroit (26-44) away. Beat Miami at home. Beat KC (26-49) at home. This is honestly merely meeting expectations. This doesn't mean that they are set up for a playoff spot - after the break they'll have to beat expectations to get over that final hurdle - but it puts them in a position to attempt that.

Get swept and the Nats are back to 5 out, needing a 9-3 run in those 12 to get to one-over. A more likely 8-4 keeps the Nats under and anything less... we're back to what are we doing?

The 3.5 out of the playoffs is a bit of a mirage. It is based on the idea that 85-86 wins will get a playoff spot, which it could but is unlikely, and ignores the fact that there are 4 teams to overcome to get that spot (and three teams within 2.5 behind the Nats also at least thinking about it). This isn't a catch the Mets scenario. It's a harder road to hoe. A good comparison would be the 2013 Nats who after being injured much of the year (with a laughable bench to replace the starters) found them themselves at 54-60 a week into August and then reeled off a 32-16 run (basically double what this Nats team has done so far) which got them to 86-76... and 4 games out of the second Wild Card.

So take nothing for granted here. It's still a slog. But better to be working through the slog than to be drowned in it.


One Note :

I noticed this last night so wanted to put it down.  Here are Phillies' performances the year before Kapler, with Kapler, and year after Kapler as applicable

Hernandez 110 93
Altherr 122 ~50
Herrera 103 88
Williams 111 87
Hoskins 162  127
Alfaro 127 95 99
Santana 112 105 147
Cabrera ~115  80  92
Realmuto 130 98
Segura 111 94
Bryce  134 109

Some of this is small sample size and there are a couple of counter examples. Franco has been a little less awful under Kapler. Ramos had a nice run in Philly.  This even extends to the pitching somewhat. Basically players go to the Phillies and under Kapler they get worse. There seems to be something going on here and it isn't something good (for the Phillies. Great for the Nats though!)


*The Dodgers have been the best in that time frame going 19-7. The Nats would be second followed by the Rockies at 18-8 and then, unfortunately for Nats fans, the Braves at 16-8. 

Sweep Them!

Being a soulless automaton giveth, but at times it taketh away. Last night was a prime example of that. Max's performance, one night after breaking his nose, inspired many, many not even Nats fans, to wax rhapsodic. But to the cold numbers and analysis programming that two days ago said the Phillies lineup stinks right now and yesterday said a broken nose shouldn't be a big deal for a pitcher* Max's performance was merely expected. It was great and all, because Max is great, but that's it. Strip the emotion out and there's nothing special here.

And that's why you come here! Strip the emotion!

The Phillies look dead right now. They signed Bryce and Cutch so they wouldn't have to use more than one of their clearly AAAA OF and they were probably expecting that to be Herrera. But then Herrera showed himself to be a criminal, they traded for Bruce, but then Cutch got injured, and now Bruce is on and off playing. Instead of zero, they are 1-2 deep into a mess they were hoping to leave behind. But this is what happens when you "plan to" and not "plan through". To start the year they set up a situation that was favorable... as long as everything went well. But everything rarely goes well for 154+ games in baseball, especially with each additional position you look at. "We don't want to dig into terrible OF depth so we have three OF we like" is a terrible plan.  It may also look familiar to Nats fans as this team has tried its own version of this, especially in the pen, for years now.

A few days ago the Yankees traded for Edwin Encarnacion. The reaction was mostly "Why? They have almost enough good players now and two coming back soon!" THIS IS WHY. Too many good players is a feature, not a bug. And maybe one day more teams will understand that. The Rays won't win a prize for being close to the Yankees and Red Sox and spending a lot less. There's no banner for most marginal wins per dollar. Arrrgh. Oh no emotion! Buzzzzz. Zzap!

As it stands right now, the Nats are clearly better than the Phillies. Just across the board better. We said that two days ago. It was set-up for a 3-1 series, and with a game gone 2-1. They have the 2 already so that third win and a sweep would be a nice bonus. I'll also note that Kapler is showing why he is also a bad manager. The Phillies have one good arm for the year in Hector Neris and one good arm right now in Juan Nicasio. They did see Nicasio for an inning last night, but haven't seen Neris at all. Instead Kapler tried to hold onto close games with an injury returning Pat Neshek and some guy with like a 6.00 ERA I've already forgotten his name.  Look, sometimes you have to do stuff like that. Throw guys in the fire to see if they've gotten better or to find someone who can handle it. Big games against your rivals is not that time though and the Nats are better for this mismanagement.

There is a couple of interesting players currently for the Nats.

Brian Dozier is rounding himself back into a usable player. His defense isn't plus anymore but he's recovered from last year and is doing ok. He's hitting homers at a nice rate too.  Of course we have to remember context. EVERYONE is hitting homers this year. I have 6 and I don't even play. So even with 12 now and on the pace for the high 20s he's not even average on offense yet.  BUT it's not important for Dozier to be good. He just has to not be bad. As long as he (and Robles) can chip in every once in a while from the bottom of the line-up, that's all the Nats need to keep pitchers working. Right now he's doing it.

Tanner Rainey has made himself into the set-up man with several effective outings. But you can't blame a Nats fan for having less than full confidence in a bullpen pitcher not named Doolittle. Is it real? Mostly yes. He's got swing and miss stuff and when he can harness that he's effective. Although it's limited his relief work years showed a depressed BABIP which suggests he can keep that down.  Not .214 down, where it is now, but on the lower end. There is a little worry that he could be homer prone - in very short stints in AA and the majors he was bombed hard, but you'd probably look at his GB/FB history and think at least that it won't be a major issue. Rainey's issue is going to be walks - which are still up there and likely going to keep him from being a true great relief arm. But we've talked about it before Hits, Homers, Walks.  If you can control 2 of three you'll be ok. Preferably not the hits/walks controlled, homers not combo but even that guy can be used. The best combo is the hits/homers controlled, walks not. It's still only 13 IP this year - he had more innings in AAA and they weren't as good. So we'll see. ultimately it's gonna be living and dying on control

*I mean, there are ways it COULD matter - it could effect his vision or breathing, or if for some reason they didn't manage the pain of it. But none of that seemed to be the case last night. in general it shouldn't. I'd imagine a standard cold might even be harder to pitch through. Not nearly as cool looking though.

Game Thread!

Since we last talked nothing happend.  Well not nothing. The Mets have split two with the Braves which is ok. Keeps the Braves from pulling away.  Max broke his nose, which isn't good, but is not your typical injury that you have to worry about him being out a long while or try to compensate and create another injury elsewhere.  He may even pitch tonight (I'd personally hold him off until tomorrow but that's me). It's something to talk about and will make a great story if he goes out and pitches today but it's more symbolic than important.

Did you know Ian Desmond was good again? Well not good for the year but in his last 30+ games he's hitting .351 / .414 / .649. I knew Murphy would hit (he has but for 10 games fewer than Ian and he dug himself a deeper hole to start) but didn't see this coming. Good for Ian!

Have at it.

Monday Quickie The first turning/breaking point

Technically any point in the season can be a turning / breaking point.  Go on an 0-11 or 11-0 run and have the team you're chasing do exactly what you need and suddenly things change.  But these are very rare because you are relying on unrelated events. You win, that's one coin flip landing heads. They lose, that's another.

But when you play head to head games - that's just one coin flip going your way to make things work for you. Your win IS their loss.  The Nats have 7 H2H games this week so they can make a move. But let's be honest about what this entails. Even if the Nats go 7-0 then are not going to be the favorites again. The other series for the Phillies are the Marlins in Philly - likely 2-1. The other series for the Braves is the Mets in Atlanta - likely 2-1. So a 7-0 run leaves the standings looking like this

ATL 44-34
PHI 41-37
WSN 40-38

So even the PERFECT run likely leaves the Nats still in third, a game behind Philly and 4 games behind Atlanta. Every game worse put the Nats in a worse position. 5-2? That's probably the goal we are looking for 3-1 vs PHI and 2-1 vs ATL making up games on both.

ATL 45-33
PHI 42-36
WSN 38-40

That's 4 games behind the Phillies and 7 behind the Braves. That's still an uphill fight. 3-4? Let's say they split PHI and lose the ATL series...

ATL 46-32
PHI 43-35
WSN 36-42

Now you are 7 behind Philly and 10! behind ATL.  I'm gonna say with half a season left - ya done.

So this is pretty much what I see barring some surprising bad play by their rivals* outside of the Nats series.

0-7  DONE
1-6  DONE
2-5  DONE
3-4   DONE FOR NL EAST
4-3  LIKELY DONE FOR NL EAST
5-2  IN A DECENT SPOT BUT NEED A RUN
6-1  IN A GOOD SPOT ASSUMING A RUN
7-0  IN IT

For the series, here are the match-ups.

Arrieta vs Corbin.  Arrieta, an Eatonesque pitcher living off one great season and being part of the 2016 Cubs, goes first for the Phillies and he's been struggling. He's an average pitcher. Unfortunately for the Nats Corbin has been matching him. The Phillies are a fairly patient squad and mostly right-handed so it's not the best match-up for Corbin.

Eflin vs Fedde. This might be the biggest mismatch on paper amazingly. Eflin has been great this year with only a brief blip of issues. Fedde has oppostiely been bad this year with brief showings of decency.  Fedde's last few starts have been filled with phrases like "he really escaped that jam" so I don't like the Nats chances here

Pivetta vs Scherzer. This is actually NOT as big a mistmatch as it seems to be. Pivetta, since coming back from AAA seems to have figured things out. Not that I like him that much but the overall ERAs don't properly reflect this match-up. Of course that holds for Max too who has been Max. Just because it's not as big a mismatch, doesn't mean it isn't a mismatch.

Nola vs Strasburg. If this was one start ago we'd be saying an easy win for the Nats as Nola hasn't been himself all year. But Strasburg's bombing last starts gives you pause. Still you can't lay everything on one start and have to like the Nats here.

It reads pitching wise as a split, with the Nats slightly more favored to take 3 than the Phillies. How are the lineups doing?

Phillies - Kingery is super hot. Hoskins is getting on base and Realmuto is hitting. Bryce is walking again but basically getting one hit a game. The rest of the team is doing poorly.

Nats - Adams is super hot. So is Rendon. and maybe Howie. Suzuki is hitting well. Eaton. Soto. Turner. There is a little break at the end of the line-up with Dozier/Gomes/Robles struggling but the Nats are clearly hitting better than the Phillies coming in, caveats of course noted**

Bullpens? Nats have a couple guys (Grace, Guerra) doing well and the rest is.. well it's the Nats pen./ But two guys doing well is one more than the Phillies have right now (Nicasio)

So every way you look at it - you like the Nats better. A little better pen. A little better in pitching match-ups. A lot better line-up right now. This is set up for a Nats series win 3-1.  Make it happen


*Could they lose those series to the Mets and Marlins? Sure. They could also sweep em! So surprisingly good play could kill this as well.

**Aren't playing the same teams in the same places over the past week. 

Trap Series

Four days from now (or five depending on how you look at it - or three if it's how my daughter choses to count days till) the Nats will start a 7 game set that will likely determine their path for the regular season. Seven games against Philly and Atlanta in DC.  Dominate (7-0) and the Nats will be back to .500 on the legitimate fringes of playoff consideration. Merely win (5-2) and the Nats will move ever closer with the easiest portion of their schedule straight ahead to put them over the top. Lose (3-4) and the Nats are now forced to hope for a "best of the season" pre WC run (like 10-1 against that easy stretch) to keep hope alive. Get dominated (1-6) and it's time to pack it in.

But that's four days from now.

In the meantime the Nats will start the homestand with 4 games against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Diamondbacks are 6-1 in their last 7 8-3 in last 11. Like the Nats it's a stretch where the they have won convincingly and lost by a few runs.  If you look at the whole season you see a team that's better than their record (40-29 pytag, 36-33 real) who is dealing with overcoming some bad one-run luck (11-16). The Nats will catch Greinke tonight, a better performing Ray tomorrow, and likely an "all-hands on deck" bullpen game on Sunday covering for an injured starter missing a turn. This is a team that can come in here are win 3 out of 4. And if that happens shift everything I said above down. Even merely losing that stretch 3-4 in 7 would probably put an end to the Nats season.

I worry about this because I think focusing the Nats is probably Davey's biggest weakness. He aims to loosen the team but seems to distract the team.

The D-backs are simply solid.  The offense actually has scored the most runs in the NL by having only one real weakness at the plate (Nick Ahmed). They have 5 guys who will hit 20+ homers and a catcher who has similar pop. They will put it in play more than strikeout while doing this and while they don't walk alot nearly all their regular will take it if it's given to them. The relief pitching is more spotty but they got a great closer in the “Nats had him” Holland. It’s a team that can beat good teams. It certainly can beat a surging but flawed Nats team.

What's up with Corbin?

Don't worry about the Nats loss last night.  They still won the series as far as I'm concerned and their run has gone like this

Marlins series at home? Won.
Mini-series at Atlanta? Won.
Cincy series away? Won.
Split Chicago home and home? Won.
Padres series away? Split.

Like I said they had one split afforded to them. One split is all they have so far. Now comes the Diamondbacks at home. Win this, go 3-1, and they've done exactly what they should have going into the Phillies and Braves series that will likely decide whether there really is a season remaining or if it's just a team playing out the string.

The Nats offense is humming. The Nats back of rotation and bullpen are doing well enough. But remember that one of the keys to the Nats making a comeback was the Top 3 pitching like the Top 3.  One guy hasn't done this. Corbin has now had three poor games in a row and while you see people pointing to the Marlins complete game as a possible turning point (too many pitches I guess?) the fact is he had a bad start before that as well, putting nine Mets on and giving up two homers in just 5 innings. Is there something we can note about what's going on?

1) He's become way more homer prone. In those 4 games (skipping the Marlins one) Corbin has given up 6 homers in 17 and 2/3rds innings. That's about 3 homers every nine which is... quite bad. Part of that is a GB rate that isn't as good as it was to start the year. As well he's getting hit harder. Simple enough equation to work out here.

2) He's kind of walking more and striking out less. Kind of. You know it's five games and there isn't an OMG thing here. Just a vague general trend that suggest he doesn't have his best stuff.

3) He's getting hammered when he puts men on. This is one of those stats that is hard to decipher. Could be that he's messing up somehow when guys get on base. Too distracted? Too much focus? Could be just some dumb luck not going his way.

4) He's had some bad BABIP days.  That Cincinnati game was fluky bad for BABIP. Almost .600 which likely mean a handful of seeing eye hits all getting through. Other games aren't as bad and more go along with the - just getting hit harder so there are more hits.

There's no super telling thing here. The first point is the most telling - hit harder and more balls in the air - and after that there's a mish-mosh of things that might matter, might be artifacts of Corbin adjusting for the first point, or might be bad luck.

Has he changed his pitching? He seems to think his issue is fastball location, which helps negate the effectiveness of his slider. Maybe he's throwing a couple fewer sliders for a couple more changes and curves.  But he's basically maintaining how he pitched before in terms of hards/changes. He notes that as far as the "hards" go, he's going more with sinkers recently but it isn't working the same as the sinker is usually a pitch you pitch to be chased down in zone but are also ok if it gets hit (since it induces GBs). Fancy stats agree that his fastball and slider have been ineffective, and less effective lately (Other pitches - which are thrown like 10-15% of the time are stable). Fancy stats also do agree he's hitting the zone less now than earlier in the year and batters are making more contact, both in and out of zone.  And fancy pitch specific stats show that while the slider is consistent, his fastball has more horizontal movement (which could indicate less control) and is finding itself more in to batter than it has all this year (and last mind you) and looking at hard pitches exactly you see far fewer in the zone recently.

To summarize that last paragraph - he seems to be on it.

Corbin isn't able to locate his fastball. I'm going to assume he is falling behind early (i could dig into counts to find out for sure but I don't have unlimited time people!) and so batters are more likely to lay off a suspected slider. He can adjust with more sinkers but that's only going to work if he can locate the sinker in a way I suspect he hasn't tried before - nailing the bottom of the zone. If batters aren't aggressive then he's still going to fall behind. (This is probably why he still did well in that Marlins game - they an aggressive team who also don't work walks) Then they can wait for a good pitch. It may not come but if 7 batters for every 9 gets to wait for two pitches, instead of say 3 - well you see the difference.

Is there any adjustment he can make? Probaby not. He doesn't seem to pitch the slider or sinker to get called strikes, using the fastball for that. Nor does anything but the horizontal movement of the fastball seem to have changed. If it were slower, if other things had changed, you might try to look for something bigger to fix. For this we're left with trying to watch him figure it out what minor tweak is needed to get that one thing back on track.

Monday Quickie - Keeping on

The Nats almost got derailed in San Diego. They lost the first two, Friday's loss with Doolittle blowing it was particularly agonizing, but they picked it up to win the last two behind Max and Stras.  The Nats could afford A split. This was the split. Now they have to keep winning. 4-2 in the last 6 to hit the 10-5 goal.

Again - can't emphasize enough how, if this is going to happen, it's likely to be a long slow slog.  After the Mets debacle the Nats were 19-31. Now they are 30-35. That's a great 11-4 run. They were 5.5 behind the Mets, 8.5 behind the Braves, 10 behind the Phillies. That made a good dent, but just a dent. Now they are 2, 6, and 7 games behind respectively.

Think about it. Everyone goes on same pace again.  Nats on a 22-8 run. 1.5 ahead of the Mets, 3.5 behind the Braves, 4 behind the Phillies. Not there yet. Again. 33-12. Mets in the rearview. 1.0 game behind the Braves. 1 Behind the Phillies. Still not there. Only need a third of the run then to catch them.  Something like 3-1 or 4-2.  Let's say 4-1. FIRST PLACE!  Now look around.  The Nats had to go 37-13 over 50 games. We're on the other side of the All-Star Break. And all they did is catch them.  Now it's a two month push to hold onto first.  And that's if everything goes perfectly playing as the best team in baseball for two solid months (they are at 2 1/2 weeks right now).  Slow it down and you are looking at catching these guys in August. That's after the trade deadline, after the chance to make moves, or perhaps after you yourself have given up.  It's unforgiving, but it's what lies in front of the Nats.

Thing is - if this were one team the Nats were chasing, you could feel pretty good but it's three. The Braves in this scenario are going like 28-21, the Phillies 28-23.  Again while the Nats go 37-13.

But hey - as of today this is still possible. Hang onto that. Go 4-2 or better. Get to those Philly and Atlanta series and see if you can really say something about the second half of this season (the ATL series will end with game 78) 

Kimbrel and Kuechel - not Nats

Kimbrel and Keuchel are now both off the table. Both would have ultimately helped the Nats. Both went different routes in signing.


Kimbrel took a multiyear package. He didn't get the 6/100+ that he looked like he was gunning for. Instead he got 3/42 (with the potential for 16 more or a buyout) that falls well short. Ultimately he was done in by the new unofficial age guidelines which basically throw you out the door in your early 30s. Kimbrel wanted something that no one is prepared to give a pitcher, certainly not one where you can't get some under 20 years, a multi-year middle 30s commitment. Holding out for that cost him probably that 4th year as guaranteed.

Keuchel looks to be gambling on himself with a 1/13 million dollar deal.  Keuchel was undone by the fact he wanted to be paid for how he pitched in 2014, 2015, and 2017 but 2016 and 2018 happened as well.  The first Keuchel deserved the 5 year / 100 million deal he was likely after.  The latter Keuchel is a 2 year deal guy. Based on fancy stats hes a high 3.00 ERA guy for the next couple of years which means he probably had something out there akin to Lance Lynn's 3/30 at best. Can he beat that next year coming off an age 31 year? Possibly - if he throws like 2015, but that's a long time ago. More likely he rolls out a year around a 3.80 FIP and settles for a 2 year deal next offseason for 15-20 or so million. If he can do that - well he nets himself a couple million considering he didn't pitch a third of this season but it probably wasn't worth it.

Anyway - how does this effect the Nats?

Keuchel is the obvious one to look at as he goes to a division opponent in the Braves.  The Braves rotation, hasn't shaken out like they wanted. While Fried and Soroka have come up from the mass of young starters as they hoped, Folty and Gausman haven't provided the stability in the middle of the rotation they were looking for. With a spotty pen, they need someone to eat innings well and Keuchel might be able to do that. He's been injured in the past, but not is only looking to go 2/3rds of a season. He should replace Gausman and settle things a bit. If Folty keeps pitching ok as he has been, that might be enough to keep pace with the Phillies. If someone else falters, he should keep Atlanta in the playoff mix, by making sure the staff doesn't fall apart.

That's overall. H2H Keuchel doesn't particularly concern me. He's a good pitcher but not great and the Nats hit lefties. There isn't a good reason to think he's going to beat them any more than any other good pitcher. He shouldn't be a game changer here.

The Kimbrel move is less directly impactful but the Cubs who weren't necessarily bad in the pen, did need that extra arm to complete this team.  The hitting is Top 5. The rotation is Top 5.  This makes the pen Top 5 and puts the Cubs in the Dodgers level. If given a choice I think the Cubs would have liked to gone and get an ace. The rotation is good but there's no dominance there. But Keuchel wasn't that so this was the move. What the Nats need to worry about now is how this effects the Central and how that effects the other teams currently in the hunt. Do the hot and cold Brewers make a counter move to stay with the Cubs? Do the Cardinals react to that? If the Cardinals react do ATL or PHI make another move down the stretch to stay in the playoffs. Or whoever is in position in the West? 

 A lot will depend on how things shake out over the next 3 weeks. Best probably case for the Nats is the Brewers drift off and you end up with a lot of middling teams fighting for the WC with no real impetus to spend a lot trying to catch that spot given their mediocre play not indicating a likely WS run. Something like it is now if MIL was at 33-30 instead of 35-28. That would give a closing in on .500 Nats team a punchers chance to emerge from the scrum given both WC would be in play and close.  This is a scenario where high 80s takes the WC spots.

Worst case for Nats is the Brewers stay close, the Cardinals catch fire and as they both gear up to challenge the Cubs through trade neither ATL or PHI falls back and in fact stay close to eachother and someone (ARI?) emerges from the West. In that scenario, even if the Nats are closing in .500 there'd be three teams ahead of them for the WC looking to really try to improve down the stretch to try to win the division who won't do that and will end up in the WC slot. Plus a WC team in whoever comes out of the West. I can't see the Nats managing to come back in this scenario as in here the WC spot probably ends up with a mid 90s and low 90s team.

Beat Bad Teams

The Nats are heating up. After going the first 50 games without a 3 game win streak, the Nats have pulled a 3 game AND four game (and counting) streaks out in this 9-2 run. It hasn't been a bunch of lucky breaks either. They've otuscored their opponents 74-48 over the streak, winning only game by one run, and two by two. The starter got the win in 6 of the 9 games, and in another Fedde didn't get it because he only went 4.

I asked more people to step up and they have.  Here are the past two weeks of hitting

Kendrick .444 /.448 / .889
Soto .415/ .500 / .707
Rendon .359 / .500 / .667
Suzuki  .400 / .455 / .550

If you have four guys hitting like that, you have to have a terrible other 4 to kill the productions. Instead you also have...

Adams .257 / .316 / .571
Dozier  .296 / .394 / .481

and Turner and Robles and Eaton... they aren't terrible.  Turner is right around average. Robles is under but hitting for ok power. Eaton is under but getting on base.

Now if we look at the past week Kendrick is slowing down but Dozier had a great week. Turner and Eaton are struggling but Robles and Parra have picked it up (just a tick).  And still four guys are OPSing over 1000, well over.

Now true this is against the soft underbelly of the schedule. Miami is terrible. Cincy is no better than average. San Diego, coming up, is like Cincy. They should beat these teams, and if the Nats are a true playoff contender they should beat them at a 2/3rd clip minimum.  And that's what they are doing!  They are playing like a playoff team right now.

But here's the rub.  It's 11 games. When the Nats started this streak at 19-31 they needed to go 71-41 just to hit 90 wins.  That's a 104-105 win pace. Now they need to go 62-39. That's still a 99-100 win pace*. Is this team, with a flawed back of the rotation and questionable pen a 99-100 win team? Do they have THAT in them? Is 90 even enough?

The finishing of this weak stretch will be interesting. The Padres, as we noted, aren't a good team. The White Sox, who follow them, are a bad one. But the conditions aren't ideal for the Nats. They played Tuesday and Wed, flew to SD and play tonight, then on Sunday they'll play a game, then fly to Chicago and play Monday. As far as baseball schedules go, it's a rough go. During thie 9-2 run they were at home then ATL and CIN then back home, with two days off in there. It was pretty nice.

The Nats have done what they should do, but if you broke this season into 6 parts, it's only the last 6th we can say that. Do it again and then again - which will then mean beating good teams in DC -  then they'll have done it for the last third of the season. That's nearly a month of baseball. That will be meaningful. But for now we still aren't talking about playoffs seriously.  Close a little more ground these 6 games, close a little more H2H, then run through the easiest portion of the schedule and see yourself at the ASB over .500 and a couple games out at most. That's the goal.

If you think you want to talk about the playoffs seriously, think about this instead. The Nats have entered a 100 game season, spotting the Braves 5 games and the Phillies 6 and a half (and the Mets a game if you are a pedant). They have 17 games left versus the Braves, but only 11 against the Phillies - though mostly at home, and for the pedant 6 versus the Mets. How do you like their chances of ending up on top of the NL East?  What if I add in the Phillies and Braves schedule, heavy on Marlins in the first 6 weeks, is now no harder than the Nats schedule?

*brought up in Twitter by @DCoruscant 

Travel Day

for me.   Nats did what they have to in first series.  Only 4 to go.