Washington Nationals: 5 to watch at Dodger Stadium

Daniel Murphy

Yesterday, Drew Douglas chose his player of the week for the Washington Nationals from the Giants and A’s series. His selection was… Daniel Murphy. Since the Nats arrived on the West Coast, Murphy has been red hot at the plate.

In the last six games, he is 14-for-28 with a pair of home runs and seven RBI’s. He drove in at least one run in four of those games and had four multi-hit games (three or more hits in three of them).

With Bryce Harper missing the first two games of the A’s series due to suspension, Murphy slid into the number three spot and didn’t miss a beat as he went 4-for-6 with a home run and two RBI’s. Right now, he is in the top five in the NL in batting average (.340) and in the top ten in RBI’s (40).

Murphy tends to play well when the lights shine the brightest. Of course, everyone remembers the great 2015 postseason when he had seven home runs in 14 games. But, keep in mind, he did have six RBI’s in the NLDS against the Dodgers and hit .438 last year in those five games. The Washington Nationals did not lose that series because of him, that’s for sure.

Last year, Murphy did not have success against the Dodgers in the regular season as he went 3-for-23 with two RBI’s in the six games. With the way that Murphy is coming into the series, he should put up better numbers this week. He does have at least one career hit against each of the three Dodgers pitchers in this series.