The final series of the season for the Washington Nationals didn’t get off to the best of starts, as the Colorado Rockies blasted four home runs to win 5-2.
As the 2018 season winds down for the Washington Nationals, they still have a say in the National League postseason race. The opposing Colorado Rockies clinched their postseason birth with a 5-2 win over the Nats on Friday night.
Despite the Nationals actually collecting more hits than their opponents, they could only push across two runs. The Nats had 12 hits, and their hitters left 21 runners on base, while the Rockies needed just eight hits to score their five runs, all of which via the long ball.
Among those 21 left on base, the Nats managed to strand the bases loaded twice in the first three innings. It’s a recurring theme this season, as they now possess the 10th ranked OPS with the bases loaded in the NL and are 19th in the major leagues.
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The only 1-2-3 innings that the Rockies pitched were the eighth and ninth innings, and to only score two runs from that is a microcosm of the season. Individuals are performing, the stats look good, but it hasn’t produced results.
Perhaps with the ever-favorable Coors Field conditions, the Nationals may be able to flip that script the rest of the weekend. However, this is an issue that needs to be looked at by management to figure out how to tackle this moving forward to 2019 and beyond.
Sammy’s misuse continues
It’s hard to think of a more bizarre usage of a pitcher than the 2018 season of Sammy Solis. A reliable bullpen arm early on in the year, his season has completely imploded on itself, and that trend continued Friday.
Solis came in to start the sixth inning against David Dahl in a lefty-on-lefty situation, despite the pitcher’s reverse splits. Predictably, Dahl did his damage by launching a solo home run deep to right field to extend the Rockies’ lead to three runs.
The splits are quite drastic at this point for Solis, who right-handers slash .224/.337/.382 against, while lefties slash .329/.398/.595 against him. Davey Martinez keeps trying to jam his square peg in a round hole by forcing Solis to be a lefty-specialist. While he can do a job against right-handers, if this stubbornness keeps up, then Solis could be jettisoned from the roster before the start of next season, if not sooner.
Ross shows promise but fades late
After a grueling campaign that was largely dedicated to rehab, Joe Ross finished off his season with more promise. It was a tough assignment in the thin air of Colorado, but on the whole, it was a positive outing.
His final line ended with five innings of work while giving up four runs on five hits and one walk and striking out four. But through four innings, he had only given up one run on two hits and a walk, but Ian Desmond and Chris Iannetta got to him with home runs.
Now it’s time for Ross to rest up and prepare for a crucial 2019 season. Starting pitching was one of the team’s key weaknesses all year, so getting a large portion of the year with the right-hander will undoubtedly help solidify the backend of the rotation.
The Washington Nationals will prepare for game two of the series behind Stephen Strasburg, who has now been confirmed as the starter. Jon Gray gets the ball for the Rockies, who have a chance to wrap up the NL West.