After a slow start, the Washington Nationals offense is getting into its groove. They have now scored the most runs in the National League during May.
Coming off of three series wins in a row, the Washington Nationals bats are rolling. Now they face the Arizona Diamondbacks this weekend, who own the best record in the National League. Blake is joined by contributor Ross Shinberg on this edition on the DoDCast to look ahead to the series.
On this episode, they talk about:
- Can the Nationals keep up their momentum from the Padres series?
- How concerned should we be about the bullpen
- Players to watch for the Diamondbacks
- Predict each matchup individually
- Answer your listener questions
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The Diamondbacks currently sit at 24-12 and are three and a half games up in the NL West. They could even make a case for being the best team in baseball right now. And the man spearheading that charge, is probably not the first name you would think of. With Paul Goldschmidt struggling, it’s A.J. Pollock who’s putting up MVP numbers so far.
This isn’t entirely new for Pollock to be a budding star, as he seemed on his way back in 2015 too. He finished 14th in the MVP voting after recording 20 home runs, 111 runs and 39 stolen bases. After a couple of injury-plagued years, he may outperform even those gaudy stats this year. So far he has a .308 average, 11 home runs and has driven in 32. He’ll definitely be circled on the lineup card.
The Arizona pitching staff has also been performing well above expectations this season. Boasting the best ERA and best batting average against in all of baseball entering the series. A potential reason for this could be the newly installed humidor. The likes of Zack Greinke and Zack Godley have both experienced good stats at Chase Field, compared to higher on the road. So don’t expect too many runs in this series.
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Next time, we invite back an old friend in Ricky Keeler as the Bronx Bombers come to the District of Columbia. It will be one the Washington Nationals toughest tests so far this season.