After an electric win, the Nats came out flat in their follow up effort
I was at the games on both Friday and Saturday. The difference in energy from the Nationals was palpable. On Friday, they were chasing down every ball and going full steam ahead, to a fault at times. However, that juice was not their yesterday. It was a lethargic effort that resulted in a 2-0 loss.
In a 162 game season, I understand you can’t be playing a 100 MPH every night, but there was a serious lack of energy for the Nats. That seems to be a big reason why they are struggling to find consistency. Well that and the inability to lift the baseball. Maybe the rain delay killed some of the energy, but that juice we saw so much of on Friday was not there.
The Nationals offense fell into all of their worst habits last night. It was ground ball after ground ball. They had a respectable seven hits, but none of them went for extra bases. Games like this are why so many Nationals fans are down on Darnell Coles. It seems like guys don’t have much of an approach when they are up at the plate.
You also have to tip your cap to the Mets pitching staff. When the Mets signed Clay Holmes to be a starter, I chuckled, but he is proving me wrong. He dominated the Nats and his sinker generated a lot of those ground balls. Their bullpen was also stellar last night.
Speaking of that, the Nationals bullpen also deserves a shoutout. They held up their end of the bargain last night, giving the Nats offense every chance to climb back into it. However, the offense did not take those chances.
Struggling arms like Lucas Sims and Eduardo Salazar were both very good last night. Jackson Rutledge and Cole Henry also continued their dominant performances. Henry has yet to allow a run in his six innings of work. The “B bullpen” has been a mess all season, but they did their job last night.
Brad Lord was also solid in his four innings. The only runs he gave up were on a Francisco Alvarez opposite field homer that barely cleared the fence. Overall, he was solid and I liked to see zero walks out of him. He had very good control in the minors, but had been walking a lot of hitters in the MLB.
However, the offense did not help out their pitching staff. Outside of Dylan Crews who had a two hits, nobody did much. In particular, Josh Bell is really struggling. His average is down to .135 and he only has four hits since April 13th. Hitting him cleanup yesterday was a head scratcher for me. I
would like to see Alex Call get some run at DH because he has simply outplayed Bell. Josh Bell is a streaky hitter, so benching him all together is not the right move, but he should not be in the lineup every single game.
Seeing the Nationals offense struggle so much some days and kick it into gear others is frustrating. Last season, the Nats offense just did not have enough good players. However, this year we are seeing a unit not reach their potential. The Nats need to bring their A game this afternoon if they want to win against the Mets.