Taking the mound for the Nationals today will be veteran pitcher Jason Marquis and for the opposing team Florida will be sending Aninal Sanchez.
Jason Marquis is coming off the worst season of his career having posted an era of 6.60 over 13 starts while battling through an elbow injury that caused him to miss almost 3 months after having surgery on it. Of his injury last season Marquis recently said “The elbow started hurting during Spring Training,” he then went on to say “I probably did further damage to the team and tried to gut it out, but I would hope a lot of guys in my position would do the same. I love the game. I love to pitch. I want to be part of a team that wins. I took the gamble and it didn’t work out. … I thought I wasn’t going to cause any more damage by pitching.
So I figured maybe if I get through this, it would be smooth sailing. But like I said, it didn’t work out. What happened, happened. I don’t regret anything. I live and stand by all my decisions. I’m looking forward to a new year.”
Marquis high era last season was mainly due to his 3 starts in April prior to going on the DL. Over those 3 starts he gave up 19 earned runs in just 8.1 innings of pitching. Post DL he put up a 4.29 era and is hoping to again show that he can be an effective pitcher.
For the Marlins they are sending out a pitcher in Sanchez that posted a 3.55 era over 32 starts last season. Over his career Sanchez has pretty much had his way with the Nationals to this point boasting a 2.28 era and a 5 and 0 record in 13 starts vs Washington.
If the Nats hope to beat Sanchez and the Marlins they are going to need a much better showing than what they had vs the Braves on Sunday. They are going to need to step up defensively, the bullpen will need to be solid and it would be nice to see Desmond finally get some hits (0 of 13) as well as LaRoche (2 of 12)