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***OFFICIAL*** Washington Nationals ongoing thread (2 Viewers)

Da Gildz shtick aside (big fan of scoring Murphy's .344/.387/.605 likely runner-up MVP season as a win for you, btw), gotta give credit to the Mets for hanging tough.  8-2 in their last ten, hanging on in that second wild card race. Nats are catching a bit of a break with them moving DeGrom up to face the Marlins tomorrow. If they had stuck with DeGrom/Thor Friday and Saturday facing some mix of Cole/Lopez/Latos in those two games we're probably looking at needing a Sunday night win to avoid getting swept in Queens- which would definitely give us a bit of a scare.

 
You're really concerned about a 9-game lead in the division on Aug 31st ?  I know Nats are choke artists but even that's a stretch  

wow. 

 
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Da Gildz said:
You're really concerned about a 9-game lead in the division on Aug 31st ?  I know Nats are choke artists but even that's a stretch  

wow. 
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No, but I would be concerned about a six game lead in early September, which is why I'm relieved the first two games of the series won't be Thor and DeGrom vs our #6 and #7 starters. As you may recall, even a seven game division lead in mid-September isn't always safe.

BTW my post was very complementary of your team's effort of late.  Not sure why you felt the need to talk trash in response

 
Nats are apparently also concerned with putting away the Mets before it gets too tight- they're using the day off to go four man rotation this weekend, with Cole on Friday, Roark on Saturday and Scherzer on Sunday night.  Which is fine I guess, and Scherzer gets the national game to try to boost his Cy Young candidacy, but I hope they start resting arms a little more and pointing to October soon.  Melancon in particular seems like he's getting overworked, he's pitched 5 of the last 6 days.

 
Swing 51 said:
Stras  :(
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Absolutely sucks for Stras, and for the 2017 Nats (assuming it's what we all think it is).  But lemme try to talk people back from the ledge regarding 2016:

1. We're probably still going to win the division. That's awesome and we should celebrate it. Best thing about baseball is that teams and fans celebrate year-long excellence in addition to good fortune in the postseason (looking at you, hockey). You get to pop the champagne and run around like idiots and put up something in your park commemorating it.

2. Losing Stras won't have THAT much impact on the NLDS. Scherzer was going to be the Game 1/Game 5 starter anyway, so we're talking one start. It would hurt more in the NLCS or the World Series when he'd miss multiple starts, but this is DC sports we're talking about. As you know none of our teams has made a conference final in almost 20 years. The NLDS is our World Series, and we can definitely still win it.  We'll be underdogs if Kershaw is healthy, but not by much, especially if we have HFA.

3. Starting pitchers don't matter as much as people think in the postseason generally.  Remember in 2012 we won the game started by Strasburg's replacement.  And here were the pitching matchups in the 2014 NLDS:

Game 1: Peavy v. Strasburg- Peavy's team won

Game 2: Hudson v Zimmermann- Hudson's team won

Game 3: Fister v Bumgarner- Fister's team won

Game 4: Gonzalez v Vogelsong- Vogelsong's team won.

The team with the weaker starting pitcher won every game of the series. 
 

This is what I've been consoling myself with since around 9 last night, at least.

 
Two free tickets available to tonight's game (9/8 vs Phils).  Send me a PM with your email before someone else claims them and they're yours.

 
I feel comfortable saying we have the division locked up after last night's win.  Time to talk 25 man postseason roster, assuming we face the Dodgers and that Ross is ready but Strasburg is not:

Rotation (4): Scherzer, Roark, Ross, Gio

Bullpen (8): Melancon, Kelley, Scrabble, Treinen, Petit, Burnett, Lopez, Glover?

Starters (8): Turner, Werth, Murphy, Harper, Rendon, Ramos, Zim, Espi

Bench (5): Robinson, Revere, Heisey, Drew, Lobaton

Seems pretty straightforward, honestly.  Only questions are the last two bullpen spots.  Might want a third lefty for the Dodgers

 
Encyclopedia Brown said:
Are you the LOOGY on the team? 
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"Grandpa, what did you get this medal for?"

EB [sniffles, brushes away a single tear streaming down his cheek]: "Well you see kiddo, back in my day sports fans sometimes used 'we' instead of 'they' when talking about their favorite sports teams on the internet. And when they did I courageously pointed out that they're not actually employed by the organization."

 
TobiasFunke said:
I feel comfortable saying we have the division locked up after last night's win.  Time to talk 25 man postseason roster, assuming we face the Dodgers and that Ross is ready but Strasburg is not:

Rotation (4): Scherzer, Roark, Ross, Gio

Bullpen (8): Melancon, Kelley, Scrabble, Treinen, Petit, Burnett, Lopez, Glover?

Starters (8): Turner, Werth, Murphy, Harper, Rendon, Ramos, Zim, Espi

Bench (5): Robinson, Revere, Heisey, Drew, Lobaton

Seems pretty straightforward, honestly.  Only questions are the last two bullpen spots.  Might want a third lefty for the Dodgers
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I think Belisle has to be in there.  Probably over Burnett.

 
Don Quixote said:
I think Belisle has to be in there.  Probably over Burnett.
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Yeah good call.  I think maybe over Petit or Glover though.  I think you need at least two lefties in the pen if you're facing the Dodgers.  Could see them going with Perez over Burnett, but gotta have at least two.

The Baseball in the District podcast had a good discussion of this in their most recent version, they also agreed Belisle has to be there.

 
TobiasFunke said:
Yeah good call.  I think maybe over Petit or Glover though.  I think you need at least two lefties in the pen if you're facing the Dodgers.  Could see them going with Perez over Burnett, but gotta have at least two.

The Baseball in the District podcast had a good discussion of this in their most recent version, they also agreed Belisle has to be there.
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You are probably right on two lefties.  It could be over Lopez too, I guess.  I remember posting a couple of months ago that they should move Lopez to a one inning reliever role for the rest of the season given his stuff.  Petit and Lopez may be redundant as long relievers, unless they think Lopez could step right into that role.

 
NL East Champs 3 of 5 years! :confetti:

Anything can happen in the postseason, but with injury concerns surrounding 3 of our 5-6 best players, including our #2 and #4 starters and our #3 and #4 hitters, and the prospect of facing Clayton Kershaw in 40% of the NLDS (possibly in LA if we don't string together a great homestand),and the Cubs probably waiting for us even if we survive ... I'm not optimistic. But I figure that's all the more reason to bask in this division championship. Never thought I'd see five years like this back in the RFK days.

 
Ugh.  On the bright side, I feel like the Nats will just be playing with house money in the postseason, which should be good for my stress levels.  It will feel a bit better going in not expecting anything, versus my past optimism getting dashed by Drew Storen.

 
Don Quixote said:
Ugh.  On the bright side, I feel like the Nats will just be playing with house money in the postseason, which should be good for my stress levels.  It will feel a bit better going in not expecting anything, versus my past optimism getting dashed by Drew Storen.
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Totally agree.  They're gonna be 2-1 dogs in this series.  No fan can reasonably expect them to win a 5 games series with Kershaw starting 40% of the games, without Ramos and Strasburg and with Harper and Murphy less than 100%, and with LA having home field advantage.

If you're still holding out hope that the Nats will hang on to home field in the NLDS, today's lineup has Drew in the 3 hole, Zimmerman batting 5th and Brian Goodwin batting 6th.  So ... yeah.

 
Doctor Detroit said:
That sucks so hard for the Nats and for Wilson who was set to get paid big in free agency.  :(
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It'll depend on his initial recovery, but I'm hoping the Nats maybe give him a QO.  Seems like it would be a win-win if they think he'll be healthy enough to play within the first month or so.

 
TobiasFunke said:
Totally agree.  They're gonna be 2-1 dogs in this series.  No fan can reasonably expect them to win a 5 games series with Kershaw starting 40% of the games, without Ramos and Strasburg and with Harper and Murphy less than 100%, and with LA having home field advantage.

If you're still holding out hope that the Nats will hang on to home field in the NLDS, today's lineup has Drew in the 3 hole, Zimmerman batting 5th and Brian Goodwin batting 6th.  So ... yeah.
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If the Mets could do it last year, the Nats can do it this year. I didn't feel great about facing #2 and #3 in the Cy Young voting for 80% of the series.

Sucks about Ramos. 

 
Rain the next three days gonna screw the schedule up and force Arizona to come back next week, which would screw up the rotation for the playoffs?

 
Don Quixote said:
I think it's more likely that Ben Revere pitches 9 innings in Game 162 than they mess up the rotation.
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Yeah they should be fine. Scherzer goes Sunday and then pitches again on Friday with Game 2 on Saturday, so they can throw whoever they want out there on Monday (other than Roark, who should pitch this Saturday) and they'll be fine.

Interesting local note- Hunter Renfroe, the dude who's been single-handedly keeping hope alive this week for us for home field advantage in the NLDS by killing the Dodgers in San Diego, has a tie to the area. He played for the Bethesda Big Train in the Ripken collegiate summer league in 2012 and got a lot of attention (or as much attention as you can get playing for the "Bethesda Big Train") at the time. They retired his number.  link

 
Spock said:
How's the weather looking in D.C.? Any chance of a rain out for today's game?
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They'll do everything they can, because if they don't there's a decent chance that Arizona would have to fly home today and then return on Monday for one game (could impact home field in NLDS so they'd have to play it).  That would obviously suck big time for everyone involved in the DBacks, and would also not be ideal for the Nats since the Dodgers would already be resting.

 
I'm now so convinced that Gio in Game 2 is the right move that I'm gonna be bummed when it turns out to be too unconventional for Dusty.

For those who may not have heard it, the idea is Gio in Game 2 so you can use Roark in Game 3 and keep the bullpen fresh for a lefty-heavy bullpen game in Game 4 (maybe start Ross but pull him at the first sign of trouble and bring in Solis and then matchups late). Given Gio's meltdown tendencies and the fact that he doesn't go past 6 innings even if he pitches really well, you don't want Gio on the road and a bullpen game back to back.

 
TobiasFunke said:
maybe start Ross but pull him at the first sign of trouble
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Gotta be the strategy when Gio goes too, yes? So ####### excited for Friday, don't think I've ever been to a game with this kind of pitching match-up. Now watch it be a 10-8 slugfest. Also Saturday could be wet and nasty with Matthew possibly coming up the east coast.

 
Swing 51 said:
Gotta be the strategy when Gio goes too, yes? So ####### excited for Friday, don't think I've ever been to a game with this kind of pitching match-up. Now watch it be a 10-8 slugfest. Also Saturday could be wet and nasty with Matthew possibly coming up the east coast.
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Yup, that's why I think you can't go Gio/Ross back to back in Games 3 and 4.  You want the bullpen to be able to give you 6-7 innings in both games.

Now that I think about it I wouldn't be that surprised if Dusty does this. IIRC he gave Gio the #2 starter spot over Strasburg to start the season because he wanted to position Gio between two horses and be able to use the bullpen liberally for his starts.  This is the same basic concept.

 
Yeah, that does seem like the best approach.  I'd hesitate to make any decision before knowing how Game 1 goes.  If they drop Game 1, I'm not sure how I feel about Game 2 being a Gio game.  Roark probably would give the best shot of avoiding going down 0-2 into LA.

 
Don Quixote said:
Yeah, that does seem like the best approach.  I'd hesitate to make any decision before knowing how Game 1 goes.  If they drop Game 1, I'm not sure how I feel about Game 2 being a Gio game.  Roark probably would give the best shot of avoiding going down 0-2 into LA.
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True, but remember there's a day off after Game 2. So you could do the same thing with Gio that you'd presumably be doing with Ross. Quick hook if he gets in any trouble at all and use the bullpen for the remaining 4 to 7 innings.  It's also possible Game 2 will get moved to Sunday by the storm and they'll have to play three straight, in which case I think they pretty much have to separate the Gio game and the Ross game to conserve the bullpen.

 
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