Washington Nationals: Five To Watch In Phillies Visit To D.C.

We give you five players to watch in this weekend’s series at Nats Park between the Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies

The Washington Nationals (5-4) started off their six game homestand this week by taking two out of three from the St. Louis Cardinals. Their starting pitchers gave up six earned runs in the three games, but the story of the series was the offense.

Despite scoring only one run in Wednesday’s loss, the Nats offense scored 23 runs over the course of the three game series. Daniel Murphy was 6-for-15 in the series with a home run and five RBI’s and has had a hit in every game this year. Also, Adam Eaton and Ryan Zimmerman had six hits each.

Today, the Nats will start the final series of this homestand when they begin a three game set against the Philadelphia Phillies (3-6). Philadelphia won two of three against the Nats last week, but they lost all three games at home to the New York Mets earlier this week (outscored 23-11).

Pete Mackanin’s club won the final two games of their series against the Nats thanks to a 12 run first inning against Jeremy Guthrie and company last Saturday and a walk-off single by Cesar Hernandez against Koda Glover on Sunday.

Since that series, the Phillies have made a change at the closer spot. Joaquin Benoit is now the new closer after Jeanmar Gomez got demoted due to giving up the ninth inning home run to Zimmerman last week.

With the way both bullpens have fared this season, no late inning lead is safe. Coming into tonight, the Phillies and Nationals are both ranked in the bottom three in bullpen ERA (Phillies – 5.73 and Nationals – 6.75) and their relievers have combined to give up 21 home runs (Phillies 12, Nationals 9)

Before this series starts this afternoon, here are the players to watch on both teams and we give you all the broadcast information that you need.