Nats Chat Mark Zuckerman & Al Galdi, Blue Wire

The Nats lost 4-2 in Boston on Saturday afternoon to return to .500 through 38 games. Al begins with Davey Martinez's decision to pitch Robert Garcia for the entirety of the bottom 8th as a tied game became 4-2 before the end of the frame.
(05:00) Jake Irvin lasted a career high seven innings and exited the game when it was tied 2-2. Irvin struck out six and threw 103 pitches in the outing. Al notes how big it is that it seems that Irvin can be a long term rotation piece as it shows the improvement in the franchise's player development.
(09:30) How much credit should we give Sean Doolittle for the pitching staff's performance thus far? He was hired in the off season as a "Pitching strategist".
(14:00) The offense had just two solo homers and only once had a runner in scoring position. Eddie Rosario homered for the third time in May and he is hitting .409 this month after hitting .053 in April.
(20:00) James Wood homered twice in Game 1 of a doubleheader on Saturday. Wood has seven homers on the season and five of them have come this week.
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The Nats are back above .500 as they began their road trip with a 5-1 victory in Boston on Friday night. Al & Mark have a Patrick Corbin vwon to open with as he only allowed one run five innings of work. Corbin gave up seven hits, but was the beneficiary of great defense by Victor Robles early in the affair.
(10:00) It was another busy night for the bullpen as five arms came on in relief to toss four shutout frames. Harvey made his 19th appearance of the season, which is more than half of the team's games thus far.
(17:00) All of the Nationals runs came with two outs against them. Leading the charge was "Mr. May" AKA Eddie Rosario as he continued his total reversal from April. He had a pair of hits, stole a base, and scored two runs with some heads-up base running.
(21:00) Robles had two hits and had a stolen base. Robles played RF in his first game back since landing on the IL early in the season as Jacob Young was in CF.
(30:00) Jake Irvin takes the mound on Saturday afternoon and the Nats currently are in 3rd place all by themselves in the NL East.
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The Nats rallied in the bottom of the 9th and 11th, but came up short on Wednesday night in a 7-6 loss to the Orioles in 12 innings. Al & Mark catch their breath after one of the best ever "Battle of the Beltways" as the Nationals held their own this week against the top record in the American League.
(08:00) Eddie Rosario homered in the 9th and had two hits in the loss. Rosario only had three hits in all of April, but already has six hits thus far in May.
(16:00) Keibert Ruiz has been scuffling big time lately, but came through with two hits on Wednesday. It was his first multi hit game since March 30th in Cincinnati.
(18:00) Mitchell Parker allowed a pair of runs in 5.2 IP in his 5th MLB start. The best part of his stat line was that 53 of his 77 pitches were for strikes.
(21:20) A staggering seven relievers were used as a day off awaits Washington on Thursday. Every available arm in the bullpen was used except for Tanner Rainey.
(27:00) James Wood homered twice on Wednesday in Scranton and Davey Martinez reiterated that the organization will be patient before calling up the team's top ranked prospect.
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For the first time in almost three years, the Nationals are over .500 on the season as they now are 18-17 after shutting out the visiting Orioles 3-0 on Tuesday night. Mark & Al put in perspective just how long it has been since the team has had a winning record, which is all the way back in early July 2021.
(05:10) Trevor Williams continued his excellent start to the season as he struck out eight O's in his 5 IP. His ERA is 1.96 after seven starts in 2024 and Williams has not surrendered a homer.
(12:45) Four relievers combined to only give up one hit in the final four frames of the victory. Robert Garcia, fresh off the IL, threw a 1-2-3 top of the 6th. Kyle Finnegan notched his 12th save of the season, which leads all of baseball.
(18:00) The Nats drew six walks and collected six hits in the victory. What stood out the most on Tuesday was that they stole four bases and three of them came against Baltimore starter Corbin Burnes.
(24:10) Victor Robles returned to the active roster, but Jacob Young got the start in CF. Davey Martinez mentioned that Robles might see action in RF as Young has played well this season.
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The Nats beat the Blue Jays 11-8 in a wild affair to capture the weekend series on a Sunday afternoon in Navy Yard after trailing 6-1 early in the game. Mark & Al have a lot to get to, but begin with Luis Garcia who had three crucial hits and knocked in four runs. Garcia homered twice in the series and is now hitting .337 so far this season.
(12:00) Jesse Winker slugged a 3 run HR to put Washington ahead 7-6 in the bottom of the 4th. Winker also doubled on Sunday for his first multi hit game since April 27th.
(15:00) Eddie Rosario had his biggest hit yet since joining the team as he clubbed a 2 run HR to break the 8-8 tie and put the Nationals up for good. Rosario's averaged is now .117 and raised 34 points over the weekend series.
(22:00) Davey Martinez used six relievers on Sunday as the team finally have an off day coming up. The final seven outs came from the trusty duo of Hunter Harvey and Kyle Finnegan.
(25:00) MacKenzie Gore only lasted three innings and committed one of the three errors charged to the team. Gore needed 76 pitches to get his nine outs as he gave up six runs, including a grand slam to Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
(33:00) The Orioles come to D.C. on Tuesday for a quick two game series. Baltimore has the AL's best record and the Nats will have another opportunity to get back over .500.
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The Nats lost 6-3 to visiting Toronto on a soggy Saturday afternoon. Al recaps the defeat as the Nationals yet again miss an opportunity to move above .500. The defense was bad as they committed four errors and all four runs that Jake Irvin allowed were unearned. Nick Senzel had two throwing errors in the loss and Trey Lipscomb also struggled at 1B.
(10:00) Tanner Rainey tossed a scoreless top of the 9th inning. It ends a string of three consecutive outings of giving up at least one run.
(13:10) A consolation prize for the offense on Saturday was that they drew five walks. Al notes the increase in walk percentage for this franchise this season.
(16:00) Eddie Rosario earned his first hit at Nationals Park this season and his batting average is now up to .096.
(19:00) MacKenzie Gore takes the mound on Sunday afternoon in the series rubber match, weather permitting.
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