{"id":11164,"date":"2015-08-10T09:45:53","date_gmt":"2015-08-10T13:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=11164"},"modified":"2015-08-10T09:55:42","modified_gmt":"2015-08-10T13:55:42","slug":"west-coast-trip-2015-its-crunch-time-for-this-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=11164","title":{"rendered":"West Coast Trip 2015: its crunch time for this team"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"I'll<\/a>

I’ll take about 10 more of those starts, Stephen, Thank you. Photo via centerfieldgate.com<\/p><\/div>\n

I wrote earlier about the ridiculous slate of starters<\/a> this team had to face coming out of the All Star break.\u00a0 They went 6-10 in that stretch, an admirable record considering the opposition.\u00a0 That took the team to a relatively “easy” looking home-stand against two also-rans (Arizona and Colorado) who were sellers at the trade deadline.\u00a0 The Nats have practically their whole offense back, augmented the bullpen with Jonathan Papelbon<\/strong>, and got their 2nd “Ace” back in Stephen Strasburg<\/strong>.\u00a0 They have no more excuses; its time to take control of the division from the suddenly energized Mets.<\/p>\n

But, instead of rolling to a 5-2 or a 6-1 home stand … the team scuffled to a 3-4 record, with Drew Storen<\/strong> blowing two games single-handedly, Doug Fister<\/strong> blowing a start against an opposing pitcher with about 5 minutes of service time, and one game that the bullpen so badly bungled that Tyler Moore<\/strong> was on the mound at the end.<\/p>\n

Not good.<\/p>\n

The team now sits at 57-53 (just an 84 win pace) and is a game and a half back of the Mets.\u00a0 And they now hit the road for a crucial, difficult 10-game west coast swing.\u00a0 Three games in LA, four in SF and then 3 more against the Colorado team that embarrassed them at home.\u00a0 This while the Mets play 7 straight in New York (albeit against the same Rockies who I thought were patsies and then against a Pirates team that just battered the Dodgers’ starters in Pittsburgh).<\/p>\n

Lets take a quick look at the projected starter match-ups against the Dodgers and Giants.\u00a0 Because, lets face it, those are the two series that could be pretty telling:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Nats SP<\/td>\nProjected Opposing SP<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gonzalez<\/td>\nAnderson<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ross<\/td>\nKershaw<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Zimmermann<\/td>\nGreinke<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Strasburg<\/td>\nVogelsong<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Scherzer<\/td>\nCain<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Gonzalez<\/td>\nPeavy<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ross<\/td>\nBumgarner<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Daunting.\u00a0 Are the Nats in danger of being outright swept in Los Angeles?\u00a0\u00a0 I think so.\u00a0 They then move up the coast but face a SF team that plays a lot better at home than on the road, despite what looks to me like a SP advantage for the Nats.\u00a0 I don’t really trust Gio Gonzalez<\/strong> anymore in big games, and certainly not on the road (where he has a 4.80 ERA this year<\/a>, versus 2.60 at home).\u00a0\u00a0 Joe Ross<\/strong> has a grand total of 7 starts in the majors and he’ll be given the rather daunting task of facing two of the best pitchers in the game back to back in Kershaw<\/strong> and Bumgarner<\/strong>.\u00a0 Tough.<\/p>\n

Here’s the problem.\u00a0 I can easily see this team going 2-5 in these games.\u00a0 What happens if the Mets keep winning?<\/p>\n

This season is more and more reminding me of 2013.\u00a0 Tons of expectations, and tons of under performance all year, leading to a mid 80s win season but no playoffs.\u00a0 If this team returns home a week from now and is at .500 (a very distinct possibility), is it finally time to worry?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote earlier about the ridiculous slate of starters this team had to face coming out of the All Star break.\u00a0 They went 6-10 in that stretch, an admirable record considering the opposition.\u00a0 That took the team to a relatively “easy” looking home-stand against two also-rans (Arizona and Colorado) who were sellers at the trade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[426,241,52,385,2691,452,894,38,235],"class_list":["post-11164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-natsgeneral","tag-clayton-kershaw","tag-doug-fister","tag-drew-storen","tag-gio-gonzalez","tag-joe-ross","tag-jonathan-papelbon","tag-madison-bumgarner","tag-stephen-strasburg","tag-tyler-moore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11164","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=11164"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11171,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11164\/revisions\/11171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}