Good Morning Washington Nationals Fan,

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, September 1, 2023. My name is Richard, Haden has the day off, so I am writing today’s Morning Briefing.

Leading today’s Morning Briefing: Nationals lose to the Marlins 6-1

Yesterday night, the Washington Nationals opened up a nine-game, 11-day homestand with a loss to the Miami Marlins 6-1. I was at the game thanks to Navy Yard Nats, so I witnessed the loss in a somewhat empty Nationals Park, Bottom line it wasn’t fun.

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As we noted in yesterday’s Game Notes, last night RHP Joan Adon made his second consecutive start against the Marlins. In his previous outing against the Marlins, he shut out the team, however, looking for similar results, unfortunately, that wasn’t in the cards for Adon.

The Marlins are fighting to remain in the postseason picture so the team had some extra motivation to beat the Nationals.

Last night, Adon allowed five runs off nine hits, one home run, and one walk across five innings pitched. He only struck out three.  In his post-game press conference, Dave Martinez discussed Adon’s outing last night: “He just couldn’t repeat his mechanics… His arm was lagging a little bit on some pitches. That’s why I think he got a little wild. We’ll get him back and get him squared away..”

Adon in his post-game comments also noticed that the Marlins might have made some adjustments in their approach: “I feel like they make better adjustments to you because they’ve seen you recently,” Adon said. “I felt like that first inning, I was throwing some very good changeups and, for some reason, I feel like they were reading them really well.” Adon is now 2-1 with a high ERA of 5.90 and now holds a 1-3 career record against the Marlins.

On the other side of the ball, the Nationals were held to only three hits and scored their only run on a CJ Abrams sac-fly in the bottom of the fifth, but the game was out of reach by then. Talking about Abrams, he looked a bit lost at shortstop last night, where he committed the only Nationals error and his 18th error of the season.

With the loss last night, the Nationals’ record is now 62-73, and are currently 8.5 games back from the last Wild Card Spot. The Nationals still have the same record as the Padres (62-73)  and still have a better record than the New York Mets (61-73).

Next game:  Tonight, the Nationals will look to even up the series against the Marlins by sending RHP Jake Irvin to the mound. Over his last three starts, Irvin has pitched to a 1.45 ERA (3 ER/18.2 IP) and has pitched at least 6.0 innings in all three starts. The Nationals will face RHP Eury Perez whose record is 5-4 with an ERA of 2.68. The first pitch is at 7:05 p.m.

Down on the Farm: What happened last night with the Nationals Minor League teams

The Rochester Red Wings aka Plates fell to the RailRiders in 10 innings tonight, moving to 6-9 in extra-inning contests. Read our full Game Recap here.

The Harrisburg Senators lost to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies 1-0 Thursday night in Binghamton. The Senators managed just one hit, a leadoff triple in the eighth inning by Brady House. House, though, was thrown out at the plate on a one-out grounder to second base that he tried to score on. Binghamton scored their only run on a fielder’s choice ground out in the fifth inning. It was an unearned run due to the runner scoring reaching on a one-out error. Mitchell Parker started and pitched well and took the tough luck loss.

The Wilmington Blue Rocks beat the Hudson Valley Renegades Thursday night in Wilmington. The Blue Rocks jumped out to an early lead in the bottom of the first inning after getting the first two batters on base and would take a 2-0 lead due to YoYo Morales liner to centerfield that bounced under the glove of Cole Gabrielson and trickled to the wall. Morales would score two batters later on a fielder's choice by Murphy Stehly which saw second basemen Jared Serna throw to home just a bit tardy. 3-0 Blue Rocks after one inning. The Blue Rocks didn’t look back. Blue Rocks starter Bryan Caceres battled through the first two innings without surrendering any runs but would get tagged for three in the top of the third.

The FredNats lost the Lynchburg Hillcats 6-4 Thursday night in Fredericksburg. Lynchburg Hillcats picked up their first win of the week. Read our full game recap here.