Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Great. The good news in last night’s game is that the Washington Nationals bullpen pitched 8⅔ innings of 1-run, 4-hit baseball with seven strikeouts against the Phillies. The bad news is the bullpen had a 9:7 BB/K ratio, and the starter, Jared Simpson, well, he walked four batters and only got one out in his start. In total, there were 13 walks to tie a dubious Nats record.

Last night’s loss sealed the deal that the Nationals would in fact have their 7th consecutive losing season. That should not come as a shock. Some in the Nats media were predicting 100+ losses like Spencer Nusbaum and Andrew Golden. With two more wins, the team will avoid 90 losses and far exceed some of the rosiest win total predictions. Me personally, I expected a losing season with vast improvement from last year. That’s why I bet the ‘over’ of 66.5 wins and cashed in as my prediction was 74 wins.

There is still that feeling of how you get to these wins and losses needs proper efficiency. You know, the process. You just cannot walk 13 batters in a Major League game. Somehow the Phillies only scored three runs.

Do you remember those signs in Spring Training a couple of years ago that read, “I don’t care how fast you throw ball four.” That had to enter your mind as Luis Perales was throwing 100.7 and Yovanny Cruz hit 100.9 on the radar gun last night and missing targets. The ump even tried to help Perales, but an ABS challenge turned that 100.7 into a ball.

As an organization, the Nats are only the 5th worst in MLB in walks with 572 this season. Last year, they were the 4th worst team in walks with 566. Yes, the ABS system seems to be issuing more walks. But in the minors where the ABS existed in Triple-A last year, the Nats have tumbled as a minor league organization from the 19th worst to 22nd this year.

On the good side, the Nats minor league system ranked 28th last year in strikeouts due to a large improvement to 10th this year. But here is the disappointing part, the Nats MLB pitching had the third fewest strikeouts in baseball last year at 1,248, and has improved to only the 6th worst (1197) and ahead of the playoff-bound Cubs.

The Cubs have the best team defense and that makes up for their lack of strikeouts from their pitching staff. They are also 9th best in issuing walks. There are certainly trade-offs when you look at ERA, WHIP, and other factors. There are times when you need to miss bats with strikeouts like RISP situations.

There is a place for strikeouts in this game, but controlling the game and winning it can be accomplished many different ways. That was a pitching philosophy of former Nats pitching coach (2009-2015) Steve McCatty who wanted quick outs with pitcher efficiency. “Outs are outs,” McCatty said. “If you don’t need the strikeout, why use all the pitches to get one? I’d rather win 2-1 and have our pitcher strike out two and walk four than lose 2-1 and have our pitcher strike out 13 and walk one.”

This is the issue with velo is that you have to be throwing those fastballs for strikes. Literally yesterday, Paul Toboni was on his radio show talking about how they want starter Andrew Alvarez to add 2-to-3 mph to his fastball. Why? He is a finesse pitcher in today’s game and effectively the 30th best pitcher in MLB (min. 100 IP) with a 3.35 ERA. Wouldn’t he be better served by adding a split-finger or fixing his slider that had a .438 SLG this year? The slider was Alvarez’s best pitch last year. And maybe throw less 4-seam fastballs and introduce a cutter like Foster Griffin throws?

Velo isn’t everything. This is where I disagree with Toboni. You have to throw your fastballs for quality strikes. While more velo changes reaction time, give me pitchers who get quality outs and limit runs.

Mariano Rivera didn’t pitch with high velo to be effective. Command and movement with deception is what Sandy Koufax taught baseball nearly 70 years ago. “Trying to hit Koufax,” Willie Stargell said, “was like drinking coffee with a fork.” Koufax once said, “I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started to trying to make them hit it.”

Yes, you want pitchers who attack. You want the best ERA pitchers. You can’t keep giving away free passes to batters. Sure, last night had some great highlights. We clipped three short videos of some strikeouts and a double play ball.

If the Nats offense scored four runs, this article wouldn’t be about walks, strikeouts, and velo. It would have been about a 5-game winning streak. That’s the crazy part. As bad as the Nats were last night with the walks, they only gave up five hits and three runs in total. Two of the runs were given up in the first inning.

There is hopefully a lesson here for Toboni and his staff: Throw quality strikes and win games.

Photos by Sol Tucker; Videos by Andrew Lang for Nats.Talk