Saturday was an all around rough day for the Nationals as they announced their best player will undergo surgery Tuesday and then they went out and lost a game the Giants practically tried to give away.
If someone would have told me that the Nats would draw 9 walks, have 3 batters hit by a pitch and load the bases in the 1st, 2nd and 9th inning well I would have thought Nats win…. and I would have been wrong.
In total the Nationals left 12 runners stranded and 3 times ended an inning with the bases loaded. Between walks and batters being hit by a pitch the Giants put a Nationals hitter on base 12 times without them having to get a hit.
What were the Nationals able to do with the opportunities given them? They produced just 1 run over 9 innings and managed only 2 hits for the game.
Following the game Adam LaRoche said “I don’t think there’s any question when you’re not scoring a lot of runs and leaving guys out there, it starts to wear on you as a team,”.
And he is right games like Saturday’s game can wear on a team and are the types of losses you definitely have to avoid. Best way to rebound from a bad loss is by following it up with a good win and that is exactly what the Nats hope to do today when they take on the Giants in game 3 of a 4 game series.
On the mound for the Nationals will be right hander Jordan Zimmermann who is looking to rebound from 2 back to back bad starts.
The start time of the game is 1:35