The Morning Briefing: August 12

Good morning, Washington Nationals fans.

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, August 12.

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Welcome to the Morning Briefing!

Leading this Morning's Briefing: Are the Nats reading the Morning Briefing?

After getting called out for their record in extra-inning games both this year (3-8) and in the entirety of Davey Martinez's tenure as manager (25-42) in this space on Friday, naturally the Nats went out and won consecutive free baseball affairs on Friday and Saturday before falling one single shy of tying the game in the bottom of the ninth on Sunday. Friday night's hero was Alex Call, bringing home Manfred Man ghost runner Jacob Young with an infield single, and Saturday's was the freshly promoted José Tena, who hadn't even met all of his new teammates yet before delivering the game-winning knock in the bottom of the tenth. Baseball, man.

Last Game Out

The free Roku broadcast (is this a trial run for a post-regional sports network world in a more accessible format than Apple TV?) Sunday game started at 11:35 AM, but MacKenzie Gore and three of the five relievers that followed him did their best to slow the game down to a more traditional end time by issuing a club record thirteen walks (six by Gore, one by Jose A. Ferrer, four by the recently reactivated Jordan Weems, and two by Tanner Rainey - evidently Jacob Barnes and Robert Garcia missed the memo). Three of Gore's free passes scored among the five unearned runs he allowed in the top of the fourth thanks to Tena breaking his thumbnail transferring a grounder from his glove to his throwing hand. Gore continued his summer swoon, struggling to get through four innings and struggling even more to put batters away, needing 86 pitches (only 48 strikes) to record those twelve outs. The Nats mounted rallies in both the eighth and ninth innings after allowing unheralded starter Jack Kochanowicz and his 10.00+ ERA to breeze through the first seven innings on 72 pitches (by inning: 8-7-15-20-7-7-8), but Juan Yepez grounded into a bases-loaded double play with the tying run on second base to end the game.

Nationals Headline of the Day: 30-30 Watch

At MLB.com, Brian Murphy wrote an article Friday headlining the ten (!!!) possible candidates to have 30-30 seasons in 2024, and CJ Abrams made his list.

Down on the Farm

Have you seen our new morning briefing, The Future? If not, check it out here and tell your friends to subscribe!

You'll find all your daily DOTF news there, but we'll give you a couple of nuggets here today as well. First, remember Tyler Stuart, the 6'9" behemoth AA pitcher that the Nats acquired for Jesse Winker a few days before the trade deadline? He pitched on Saturday night at Bowie and recorded 13 strikeouts in 5.2 innings of work while allowing a single unearned run. Second, the FredNats pitched a combined no-hitter on Friday evening against the Carolina Mudcats, with Travis Sykora leading off the proceedings with six perfect innings highlighted by ten strikeouts. Get that man to Wilmington!

Featured Baseball Story of the Day

Just a few days after Billy Bean passed away, we were reminded of how much work still needs to be done to combat homophobia in professional sports in general and baseball in particular. Jarren Duran turned towards a heckler in the stands and called him an inappropriate homophobic slur during a sixth inning plate appearance in Boston's 10-2 loss to Houston yesterday, which was picked up clearly by the NESN broadcast. Both Duran and the Red Sox issued an apology after the game. There has been no word yet on any discipline from MLB or the Red Sox.

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