Tom Boswell has produced another masterpiece in today’s Washington Post. No way will I try to compete with his portrayal of the situation the Nationals are in. And he did leave Nats fans with a glimmer of hope in which Jason Werth reveals how the Phillies were in dire straights in 2007-8. Check it out for yourself:)
Can the Mets still choke? Sure, but they are gaining on the third best team in the National League right now.
Though the Nats won last night (August 22) their mathematical odds of making the playoffs got worse. That may seem counter-intuitive, but it is due to the Mets also winning and the number of remaining games decreasing by one.
Both teams have easy schedules for the remainder of the season. That’s a non-mathematical reason working against the Nats making the playoffs:)
Anthony Rendon is starting to get the timing and flow of hitting back! Today and yesterday he had great at-bats, he was grinding them out, seeing a lot of pitches! He did the same today, patiently looking for a good pitch to hit and not swinging at bad ones.
Jason Werth and Willy Ramos are getting more good at bats now too. The homer Ramos hit today was mammoth!
I’m puzzled however over why the team called up Trea Turner and they haven’t put him in the starting lineup at least once! That is not good managing; the kid has been starting in the minors for most of the year and now he is in the Nats dugout, but only getting an at-bat here or there. If that is all there are going to let him do, they should send him back to Syracuse where he can play every day and stay sharp. Matt Williams ought to know better.
I hope Rendon stays at 3B. He is way better there than Escobar. Put him at 2B.
A couple of nights ago, I happened to be watching as an unknown Oriole hit his walk-off home-run to beat the NY Mets. Then I switched back to the Nats-Rockies game in time to catch the Nats late rally to win their second in a row. Thus the Nats gained a game on the Mets.
Today the Nats are 4 games behind. They start a home-stand against some weaker teams and time is fast running out for the curly Ws. Denard Span might return soon. “Tony Two-bags” might start hitting.
And Scherzer might start pitching.
Who knows, MW might even be manazging next year.
Every reliever has a bad night once in a while, and it has been a very long time since something like last night happened to Drew Storen. When the “slammer” was hit in the 8th inning, the Nats had 2 innings left for their offense to just score a run or two. The Mets came back from deficits three times last night, but the Nats hitters could not muster even one comeback. A rookie struck out Bryce Harper to end the game.
The Nats chances of making the playoffs have taken a BIG hit in the past 8 games!
I was glad to see the Nats make a tough decision as the NL East competition heats up. Sending the veteran Doug Fister to the bull-pen showed in favor of keeping Joe Ross in the starting rotation is a clear sign the front office is serious about the run for the playoffs. Starting Danny Espinosa at SS the other day was a similar indication. And the move to start Robinson at first base yesterday worked well as did sending Ryan Zimmerman in the pinch-hit late in the game!
Baseball is a very fickle game, but yesterday “the gods” were smiling on the Nats:)
Remember the game of last night, August 4. “Gritty” said the Wash. Post. I can’t think of a better adjective! And a throwing error with 2 out in the 9th inning by Yunel Escobar almost blew it. That likely happened because his heartbeat (and that of eveery National) was above 180 bpm:)
Willy Ramos (the “Buffalo”) got the key RBI hit in the 8th inning, and Jason Werth’s alert base-running got the winning run across home plate. For Jason, this game hopefully was the turning point where he started to play his normal leading role in the Nationals’ offense. He has always been a stand-out base-runner, so I was not surprised at his ability to read what was going on in the D’backs’ outfield and score from 2B on a single. His at-bats last night were epic J-Dub efforts where he forces the pitcher to throw 10 or more pitches every time he steps into the batter’s box! For those of us who really know him, he increases his chances for a good result with each pitch:) That got him a key base-knock in the 8th inning just before Ramos drove him in!
So, the Mets and Nats are tied for first place after 103 games. The just-concluded 3-game series was at times hard to watch, as good-pitching with mediocre hitting can be. The Mets out-scored the Nats 10-5, and the weak-offense Nats struck out 34 times in the 3 games. Bryce (and most of his teammates) at times looked over-matched against the three aces New York threw at them. In 11 at-bats Mikey Taylor fanned 8 times, looking like the pre-2015 Danny Espinosa. Too bad “mad-man-Max” coundn’t pitch all three games!
The recently bolstered back-end of Washington’s bull-pen could not help in this series.
New York almost sold out all three games and the atmosphere was electric for the whole weekend. The Mets have not generated this kind of raucousness since 2007!
Fasten your seatbelts:)
Pete's Curveball 