Game No. 77: The Nats have to win a series today

The Washington Nationals had to play against the Colorado Rockies last night and the referees. In the end, the Nats lost on a blown save due to a pitch validation with the bases loaded, with Kyle Finnegan allowing four consecutive singles and a walk without recording a single out. He just couldn’t miss a hit last night. He could have blown a bigger lead if he had it. Just a punch to the gut in a loss in an 8-7 final. The Nats fall to 6-11 in one-run games, which is one of the reasons the team isn’t currently running away with a wild card spot.

In last night’s game, there were 12 strike decisions in favor of the Rockies and only four in favor of the Nationals. That makes a total of eight incorrect decisions against the Nationals. A huge discrepancy, and some decisions were more costly than others. Then there was a steal by CJ Abrams that was overturned in a replay challenge. Two replay angles shown on TV supported that the base was stolen. Was there another angle? Well, the replay umpire overturned the call. It was a huge play at the time and could have decided the game.

Since Abrams was technically thrown out, three were caught stealing, and in the case of Lane Thomas – he ran on a hit-and-run that didn’t work. The fourth runner thrown out was Eddie Rosario, who was trying to turn a single into a double, facing one of the best pitchers in baseball, and one wonders if Rosario listened to the scouting report?

Taking four baserunners off the bases and allowing Colorado 4 of the 27 outs in this game just shows the Nationals need to change their baserunning strategy. When Abrams was 0-2, I knew Jacob Young was going to try to steal, and the Rockies called a pitch out and got Young by a hair’s breadth. The Nats have been aggressively dumb about running the bases over the last month because they now know the patterns. Opposing teams have gotten smarter, and the Nats have not adjusted. In their last 51 attempts to steal bases, the Nats’ success rate is just 52.9 percent. That’s not going to work, and you’ll see manager Dave Martinez in denial below in his answer to the question about running the bases.

There were so many good plays in that Nationals game that were overshadowed by the umpires, the poor baserunning, Nick Senzel’s botched grounder (which was ruled a hit), and the loss of Jesse Winker to an umpire’s ejection for disputing a strikeout call — and in this case, the umpire actually gave Winker a gift earlier in the at-bat. Yes, it was a strikeout and Winker was wrong. Losing his bat was bad.

There is one more game to win today before the Nats fly to San Diego. The Nats will face left-hander Kyle Freeland, who just came off the IL, and the team will limit his pitches. They also brought in a new bullpen long man to bolster their bullpen.

Technically, the Nats only got 2.0 official innings out of their bullpen yesterday, as Finnegan did not record a single out. Out of the bullpen, it was Jacob Barnes, Hunter Harvey and Finnegan who pitched in this game.

In our opinion, the starting lineup could look like this without Gray, Williams and Cavalli:

1. Sunday: Jake Irvin vs. Rockies
2. Monday: Patrick Corbin vs. Padres
3. Tuesday: MacKenzie Gore vs. Padres (Josiah Gray pitches in Triple-A)
4. Wednesday: DJ Herz vs. Padres (rehab start for Cade Cavalli)
5. Thursday: Closed 27 June
6. Friday: Mitchell Parker vs. Rays
7. Saturday: Irvin vs. Rays
8. Sunday: Corbin vs. Rays
9. Monday: Gore vs. Mets
10. Tuesday: Hearts vs. Mets
11. Wednesday: Parker vs. Mets
12. Thursday: Irvin vs. Mets – July 4
13. Friday: Corbin vs. Cardinals
14. Saturday: Gore vs. Cardinals
15. Sunday: Hearts vs. Cardinals

Your best Washington Nationals on the FanGraphs’ WAR Leaderboard has MacKenzie Gore at +2.1 and Jake Irvin at +1.7 WAR. Trevor Williams has +1.7 WAR and Jacob Young leads the field at +1.5, with CJ Abrams right behind at +1.4 WAR. Mitchell Parker has +1.3. In total, 22 Nats players have a positive WAR and another six have a neutral WAR of 0.0. Eddie Rosario has dropped to -1.0 WAR and Keibert Ruiz has -1.0 WAR.

The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 3.90 and 13th in the MLB. The Nats are 13 points away from being in the top 10 starting lineup according to ERA. Check out these team rankings.

Here is their ranking, and if we add DJ Herz, he would be ahead of Patrick Corbin with an ERA of 4.50:

Starter No. 5: Patrick Corbin 5.60
No. 4 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 3.49
Starter No. 3: Mitchell Parker 3.30
Starter No. 2: Jake Irvin 3.24
Starter No. 1: Trevor Williams 2.22

BAshington Nationls against Colorado Rockies

Stadion: Coors Field, Denver, Colorado
1. Rope length: 3:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2
Radio: 106.7 The Fan Radio and on the MLB app; in Spanish on DC 87.7 FM and La Pantera 100.7 FM/1220 AM. Tune in to Sirius/XM channel 186 for the home broadcast; the away team can only be seen online.

Cast subject to change (without prior notice):

TalkNats celebrates 5th and 100th anniversaries of World Series victories with game recaps.

Game 77:
The Nationals lost at home to the Braves on June 23rd, reaching a record of 37-40. But you already knew that. Match report / tables
The Senators lost at home against the Tigers on July 10, resulting in a score of 43-34. Match report / tables

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