Washington Nationals at Philadelphia Phillies: Five Players To Watch This Weekend

Here are five players you should watch in this weekend’s Washington Nationals series at Citizens Bank Park against the Philadelphia Phillies

In their first series of the 2017 regular season, the Washington Nationals took two out of three games from the Miami Marlins at Nats Park. While the Nats lost the series finale 4-3 in ten innings last night, there were a lot of positives to take from the series.

First off, the starting pitching trio of Stephen Strasburg, Tanner Roark, and Gio Gonzalez gave up a total of four earned runs in 20 innings. On offense, the Nats have hit six home runs (second most in the National League) and two of them have come from first baseman Ryan Zimmerman (5-for-12).

This afternoon, the Nats will be at Citizens Bank Park to take on the Philadelphia Phillies for the start of a three game series. In 2016, the Nats won 14 of the 19 matchups, scored a total of 81 runs, and won eight of nine games at Citizens Bank Park. Bryce Harper, Daniel Murphy, and Jayson Werth each drove in ten or more runs against Philadelphia.

In the Phillies first three games of the season, they lost two out of three games to the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ballpark. Their leading hitter in those games, center fielder Odubel Herrera went 4-for-10 with three walks and Daniel Nava hit two home runs in yesterday’s loss

These are the scheduled three pitching matchups for this weekend’s series:

Today: Max Scherzer vs. Vincent Velasquez – 3:05 p.m ET – broadcast on MASN/MLB Network

Tomorrow: Jeremy Guthrie vs. Aaron Nola – 7:05 p.m – MASN2

Sunday: Stephen Strasburg (1-0, 2.57) vs. Jeremy Hellickson (1-0, 1.80) – 1:35 p.m – MASN2

Before we get into my five players to watch for this weekend’s series, listen to last night’s recap of the Nats loss via our postgame DoDcast:

So, here are my five players to watch, which will include three players from the Nats and two from the Phillies: