The Washington Nationals had a heartbreaking loss on Sunday in the 9ᵗʰ inning. They found a new way to lose after an airmailed throw with two outs went into the dugout. On Saturday’s blown save, they kept the game tied, and the Nats won via the walk-off. While not every blown save is created equally, the Saturday game, which turned out to be a win, was costly because it burned the bullpen. And both blown saves might have been avoidable if manager Blake Butera had just done one small detail: Upgraded his outfield defense in that 7ᵗʰ inning on Saturday.

With Jacob Young on the bench on Saturday, Butera had his best defender and the 3ʳᵈ best defensive outfielder in MLB available. What was he saving him for when he inserted, a pitch-to-contact reliever, Tom Cosgrove, into the game?

As it turned out, Dylan Crews was in center field, and he couldn’t catch that ball that led to 4-runs scoring — but Crews was there in time and the ball clanked off of his wrist, meaning he dove too far for it. Young is arguably the best defender in baseball at outfield walls. You catch that ball — it’s 3-outs, and you move onto the 8ᵗʰ inning with a 4-0 lead. Brad Lord pitches the final 2-innings like he did, and the Nats win the game WITHOUT extra innings. And guess what, Orlando Ribalta would not have been needed to pitch on Saturday. Instead, Ribalta could have pitched the 9ᵗʰ inning on Sunday as the closer after Clayton Beeter pitched 2.0 scoreless innings.

Maybe all of that is a lot of assumptions, but that is far better than how it played out in reality — although Crews appreciates it since he got his first career walk-off hit on Saturday. But what happened on Saturday was the “cause and effect” that snowballed into the avalanche on Sunday as the “A” bullpen was used up by the time the 9ᵗʰ inning started. Those are what is referred to as the “little things” that Butera sometimes misses in the fine-print details.

While the criticisms might seem harsh, this isn’t a call for Butera to be fired. But maybe he needs a better bench coach who can be in his ear. We keep seeing the same mistakes repeated. Yesterday, with a runner on third base and one out, Butera pulled Young from the game for a pinch-hitter. He can actually hit against right-handed pitchers in Hi Lev. By taking Young out of that game and inserting Pinckney into center field, the call-up got overzealous and missed his cut-off man and the ball ended up in the dugout and scored two runs making a tied game with two outs on Sunday a 4-2 game. Young probably would not have made that same aggressive throw. And yes, that wasn’t all Pinckney’s fault as Jorbit Vivas didn’t block the throw and Cosgrove didn’t back-up the throw.

The Nats modest 3-game winning streak ended, and they will need to start another winning streak. There are just 22 games remaining in this regular season. To avoid a 90 loss season, the Nats need to get 8-games in the win column. And to get to a winning season, the Nats would have to go 17-5 to finish the season.

❝… My job is to do the best job I possibly can with the team we have — and the bullpen we currently have. … We can’t keep giving up these leads.❞

— said manager Blake Butera after yesterday’s game

On offense, the Nats have the second most runs scored in MLB this season at 720 runs, and that is an impressive 5.20 runs per game. With the Nats pitching giving up 4.67 earned runs per game, the difference is really those pesky unearned runs due to the errors. Overall, the Nats have a +16 run differential on the season.

Here is manager Blake Butera‘s bullpen chart:

The FanGraphs WAR chart is now large in its sample size. You can certainly start to extrapolate the numbers for the full-season. The OAA defense stat is now giving us a picture of what the Nats have — and don’t have.

Miami Marlins vs. Washington Nationals

Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 6:45 PM EDT
TV: Nationals.TV
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 178 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.

Photo by Marlene Koenig /Nats.Talk