The Washington Nationals notched their second sweep of the season, and have now won their last 4-of-5 games at an opportune time after that 7-game losing streak had them reeling at the trade deadline. Losing streaks happen — now the Nats need a long winning streak. The Nats are now 59-61, and all of a sudden, back in the Wild Card hunt. While any thought of a postseason berth is improbable, it’s not impossible. Start that “Why Not Us” talk again.
What we have seen since Wednesday in Philadelphia is a combination of timely hitting, excellent defense, base running, improved starting pitching, and a competent bullpen. Even with blown saves in that span, none of them resulted in losses.
Today, was a bullpen game for the Nats since they DFA’d Zack Littell. A total of four relievers combined to clinch the series sweep, and that was the Nats first sweep since April 10-12 against the first place Milwaukee Brewers.
The Nats outscored the Reds in this weekend sweep by a combined score of 20-6. On Saturday, the Nats handed Reds’ ace, Chase Burns, his first loss since April. With this sweep, the Nats leapfrogged over the Reds in the standings, and if the Nats can come out of their off-day tomorrow and extend this current winning streak against the Cubs, this could get interesting.
Three traded pieces from the Luis Garcia Jr. and Foster Griffin trades, are now in the Nats current bullpen with Yovanny Cruz, Will Dion, and Jake Bird. That’s 38 percent turnover with the newbies, and each were keys in the win this weekend.
Once again, Daylen Lile got hot against his hometown, Cincinnati Reds, team. If he can bottle up that success, that could really help as Abimelec Ortiz, as the lefty first baseman, is doing his best to pick up the production of Garcia. Nobody has picked up the production of Curtis Mead. And of course nobody was going to pick up what Griffin was doing as the team’s best pitcher — but you saw Griffin fading at the end — and so far, he hasn’t been good for his new team in Cleveland.
The Nats scored those 20 runs this weekend without James Wood who has been missing since he hurt his oblique and was placed on the 10-day IL earlier in the week. Yes, the Nats are doing this without Wood, Garcia, and Mead. They made up 3-of-the-4 best Nats hitters with only CJ Abrams now trying to carry this offense.
Manager Blake Butera has to keep this going with his team that is one win from 60, and eight wins from exceeding every preseason projection as even the most optimistic Vegas numbers at the Nats at 66.5 wins on the season. And the good news is the Nats have 42 games remaining.
The first bit of business for Butera’s team is getting back over .500 which they can do quickly if the Nationals got their winning streak to seven games or more. We can dream, right?
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