{"id":10964,"date":"2015-06-20T10:03:44","date_gmt":"2015-06-20T14:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=10964"},"modified":"2015-06-20T10:03:44","modified_gmt":"2015-06-20T14:03:44","slug":"is-ross-making-the-nats-re-think-their-future-rotation-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=10964","title":{"rendered":"Is Ross making the Nats re-think their future rotation strategy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/a>

Joe Ross has been a revelation at the MLB level. Photo Getty Images via federalbaseball.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Joe Ross<\/strong>, who it is fair to say was in some respects the “other guy” in the Tampa\/San Diego 3-way trade that netted the Nats presumed future shortstop Trea Turner<\/strong> but cost them Steven Souza<\/strong> and prospect Travis Ott, <\/strong>got a somewhat surprising call-up after the starters covering for Doug Fister<\/strong> didn’t quite give the Nats the performance they were looking for.<\/p>\n

Three starts later, two of which were easily defined as “dominant,” is it too soon to think that perhaps Ross is a bigger part of the Nats future than the trio of starter prospects we have stashed in Syracuse?<\/p>\n

He looked *really good* last night against a team on an 8-game winning streak.\u00a0 He was making professional hitters look very, very ordinary with his slider.\u00a0 His slider was so good, he threw it nearly 50% of the time last night and got an astounding 38% whiff rate<\/a>.\u00a0 Average fastball of 93.1, max of 96.8 on the night.\u00a0 Wow.<\/p>\n

Small Sample Sizes, of course.\u00a0 And maybe you could ignore the 11-K performance against the god-awful Brewers.\u00a0 But Pittsburgh is was hottest team in the league and was mowed down like little leaguers.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of this season, if you asked me what the Nats’ rotation was going to look like in the next three transitionary years, I might have said something like this:<\/p>\n