Nationals: Can Patrick Corbin Dominate Miami Again?

Can Washington Nationals’ starter Patrick Corbin recreate his dominate May performance against the Miami Marlins on Wednesday?

When Washington Nationals’ starter Patrick Corbin faced the Miami Marlins on May 25, he had one of the best performances of his career.

The left-hander pitched a complete game shutout, striking out five and allowing just eight balls to leave the infield. At that time after his dominant performance, Corbin improved to 5-2 with a 2.85 E.R.A. and was looking like one of the most dominant pitchers in all of baseball.

Since that game, Corbin has looked like a shell of his early-season self, and up until his last start against the Phillies, he had not gone more than five innings since the shutout victory.

Despite looking better against Philadelphia, a start against the Marlins might be just what Corbin needs to get back on track. Miami has the fifth worst batting average in all of baseball at .237 and has hit just 60 home runs, by far the worst mark in the MLB.

Besides not hitting for power the Marlins also do not get on base much, as their .649 team OBP is also the worst mark in all of baseball.

All of these factors make for a dominant Corbin start, and just maybe this can propel him back to the form we saw him at in April and May.

For the Nationals to make a deep postseason run, they need Corbin to be the guy that they believed he was when they signed him this offseason. For the first two months of the season, he was arguably the best pitcher in their rotation. Then in his three starts after the dominant performance against Miami, he looked like one of their worst.

There are not many teams with a worse offense than the Miami Marlins, and Patrick Corbin has a chance to dominate them once again and get his season back on the right track.