{"id":11066,"date":"2015-07-20T09:04:21","date_gmt":"2015-07-20T13:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=11066"},"modified":"2015-07-20T09:04:21","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T13:04:21","slug":"remember-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=11066","title":{"rendered":"Remember this Weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_11069\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ScherzerMax-covered-in-chocolate-via-thesportsquotient.com_.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11069\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11069\" src=\"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ScherzerMax-covered-in-chocolate-via-thesportsquotient.com_-300x208.jpg\" alt=\"Scherzer can't pitch a no-hitter every time; at some point this team needs to start hitting.  Photo via thesportsquotient.com\" width=\"300\" height=\"208\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ScherzerMax-covered-in-chocolate-via-thesportsquotient.com_-300x208.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/ScherzerMax-covered-in-chocolate-via-thesportsquotient.com_.jpg 628w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-11069\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scherzer can&#8217;t pitch a no-hitter every time; at some point this team needs to start hitting. Photo via thesportsquotient.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>If the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/games\/standings.cgi?date=2015-07-19\">playoffs started today<\/a>, here&#8217;s what the match-ups would look like (and frankly the odds of this setup changing seem slim; maybe SF catches Chicago for the 2nd WC but otherwise this seems like it will be the line-up):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh for the wild card<\/li>\n<li>St. Louis hosting the WC winner<\/li>\n<li>Washington traveling to Los Angeles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And in said short series, with the Nats traveling to Los Angeles, they&#8217;d likely face <strong>Clayton Kershaw<\/strong> and <strong>Zack Greinke<\/strong> again in games 1 and 2.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what the LA 1-2 punch just did to our hapless lineup, on the road no less where Kershaw has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/split.cgi?id=kershcl01&amp;year=2015&amp;t=p\">significantly worse stats<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Kershaw: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/WAS\/WAS201507180.shtml\">8 innings, 3 hits, 14 Ks, 0 walks<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Grienke: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/boxes\/WAS\/WAS201507190.shtml\">8 innings, 3 hits, 11 Ks, 1 walk<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There&#8217;s not a pundit in the game who doesn&#8217;t think the Nats aren&#8217;t going to win the NL East.\u00a0 That they&#8217;re in first place while their #1, #2, #4 and #5 hitters sit on the D\/L is pretty amazing (or, perhaps more to the point, a pretty bad indictment of our division in 2015).\u00a0 But the toll is being seen; between outings against Kershaw, Greinke and (just before the all-star break) <strong>Johnny Cueto<\/strong>, we now see the effect of such a weak offense.\u00a0 MLB-wide Aces will absolutely dominate the Nats.\u00a0 To the point where we could have <strong>Cy\u00a0 Young<\/strong> himself throwing and not have a chance.\u00a0 If there&#8217;s just one or two legitimate hitters in your lineup, you can pitch around them and attack guys who otherwise would be in AAA or on the bench.\u00a0 As we just saw.<\/p>\n<p>The question is this: can the Nats offense turn this around?\u00a0 We have now seen this team make the playoffs twice, each time with the best record in the league, and then each time flail out of the playoffs while barely hitting.\u00a0 In 2012 they hit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/postseason\/2012_NLDS1.shtml\">.232\/.290\/.393<\/a> and in 2014 they hit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/postseason\/2014_NLDS1.shtml\">.164\/.222\/.258<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Yes we plan on getting everybody back.\u00a0 Most of our D\/L guys are <a href=\"http:\/\/mlb.mlb.com\/mlb\/fantasy\/injuries\/#team117\">on rehab assignments<\/a> as we speak actually.\u00a0 Can they get their expected form back and make this team respectable on offense?\u00a0 Can <strong>Jayson Werth<\/strong> regain his stroke despite recovering from a broken wrist?\u00a0 Can <strong>Denard Span<\/strong> regain his batting stroke despite a chronic back issue?\u00a0 I&#8217;m less worried about <strong>Zimmerman<\/strong> and <strong>Rendon<\/strong>; they just need time and luck to stay on the field despite leg\/foot issues, and both those guys profile as the kind of middle-of-the-order hitter that would give the Nats lineup some potency back (not to mention some protection for <strong>Bryce Harper<\/strong>).<\/p>\n<p>Will it be enough?\u00a0 Are you worried about looming playoff match-ups?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If the playoffs started today, here&#8217;s what the match-ups would look like (and frankly the odds of this setup changing seem slim; maybe SF catches Chicago for the 2nd WC but otherwise this seems like it will be the line-up): Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh for the wild card St. Louis hosting the WC winner Washington [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[185,164,426,45,482,115,890,1037,36,254],"class_list":["post-11066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nonnatsbaseball","category-natsgeneral","tag-anthony-rendon","tag-bryce-harper","tag-clayton-kershaw","tag-cy-young","tag-denard-span","tag-jayson-werth","tag-johnny-cueto","tag-max-scherzer","tag-ryan-zimmerman","tag-zack-greinke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11066"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11066\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11070,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11066\/revisions\/11070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}