The Morning Briefing
Good morning, Washington Nationals fans.
Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, August 5.
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Welcome to the Morning Briefing!
Leading this Morning's Briefing: (NBA Jam voice: He's Heating Up!)
A year ago Saturday, the day after after a wild 3-2 win over these very same Milwaukee Brewers, Luis García Jr. was on his way to join the Rochester Red Wings after a harsh public calling out by his manager and general manager for a lack of conditioning, focus, and work ethic. It wasn't entirely clear that the message had hit home either at the end of last season or this spring, but we are clearly seeing a different and much more focused player. He also happens to be white-hot right now. García Jr. homered on Sunday and finished Saturday just a triple shy of the cycle, and since July 1 is hitting a ridiculous .373/.409/.639, good for a 188 wRC+ that's eleventh in the majors over that span. He has been a defensive plus all season long (for the first time in his career) and might be the Nats' best base runner (17/20 stealing despite thoroughly average speed - 49th percentile). Because he debuted in 2020, it's easy to forget that García Jr. turned 24 in May and has three seasons of team control remaining. He's a great reminder that progress isn't linear, and you never quite know when things might click for a player.
Last Game Out
The last time he faced the Brewers, Mitchell Parker managed to record just two outs on 46 pitches. Yesterday his 46th pitch came with two outs in the fourth inning, and he wound up throwing six scoreless innings, clinging to a one-run lead courtesy of LG's first-inning bomb to the bullpen car behind the center field wall. The Nats gave Parker a better cushion as he was getting handshakes in the dugout, loading the bases for James Wood to clear them with his second triple past a diving Jackson Chourio in left field. For all of the bellyaching that I have seen on the interwebs about Wood "not being ready" for the majors, I would like to point out to the statistical traditionalists that his 20 RBI in 29 games puts him on a 112-RBI pace over 162 games. Exactly one Nat has eclipsed that number in a single season (Anthony Rendon in 2019 with 126). He's doing just fine for the present. In the eighth inning, Robert Garcia - in a major rut right now - gave Wood's three runs back, including a 444-foot moonshot off the bat of Gary Sánchez that bounced into the last row of tables on the Red Porch, real estate that precious few baseballs have visited. Jacob Barnes and Kyle Finnegan bailed Garcia out to clinch a series win opening this ten-game homestand.
Nationals Headline of the Day: Vargas wins Nats' Heart & Hustle Award
MLB alumni vote for a player on each team to be that franchise's honoree for the Heart & Hustle Award, which I could describe in detail but sounds exactly like what it is and is best explained by its first three winners being David Eckstein, Craig Biggio, and Biggio again. At MLB.com, Melanie Martinez-Lopez wrote about Nats honoree Ildemaro Vargas.
Down on the Farm
This might have been the best weekend for Nats pitching prospects in organizational history. To wit:
Andrew Alvarez (AAA, Friday): 5.2 IP, 4 K, 1 BB, 4 H, 0 R
Orlando Ribalta (AAA, Friday): 1 IP, 1 K, 0 BB, 0 H, 0 R
Andry Lara (AA, Friday): 5 IP, 7 K, 3 BB, 3 H, 3 ER
Marquis Grissom Jr. (AA, Friday): 2 IP, 2 K, 0 BB, 0 H, 0 R
Zach Brzykcy (AA, Friday): 1.1 IP, 3 K, 0BB, 0H, 0 R
Jarlin Susana (A+, Friday): 5 IP, 8 K, 0BB, 3 H, 2R (1 ER)
Travis Sykora (A, Friday): 5 IP, 8 K, 1 BB, 0 H, 0 R
Brad Lord (AAA, Saturday): 5.2 IP, 4 K, 2 BB, 4 H, 2 ER
Rodney Theophile (AA, Saturday): 5 IP, 7 K, 3 BB, 2 H, 0 R
Orlando Ribalta (AAA, Sunday): 1 IP, 3 K, 0 BB, 0 H, 0 R
Tyler Stuart (AA, Sunday): 6 IP, 9 K, 2 BB, 4 H, 0 R
Those are all names you will find on various organizational lists, and the composite performance was this: 42.2 IP, 56 K, 12 BB, 20 H, 7 R, 6 ER. That's a 1.27 ERA, 0.750 WHIP, 11.8 K/9, and 2.5 BB/9. With the exception of poor Alex Clemmey (who had to make his organizational debut against his teammates of a few days ago in Lynchburg), the serious Nats pitching prospects collectively pitched like prime Pedro Martínez.
Featured Baseball Story of the Day
Major League Baseball has by far the best trade deadline of any major sport, the NFL has the best draft, and the NBA has the best free agency frenzy. MLB is already thinking about how to potentially make the deadline even better, writes Jeff Passan for ESPN Insider, and is thinking about working in the trading of draft picks (the only thing you can't trade - there's even an allusion to the Peterson-Kekich family swap) into the next collective bargaining agreement. Currently only competitive balance picks can be traded (about six), like the one the Nationals got from the Royals for Hunter Harvey and used on catcher Caleb Lomavita. Commissioner Rob Manfred agrees that the game has changed from when MLB was protecting clubs from themselves by not allowing draft pick trades (before the original Trea Turner rule draft picks could not be traded within their first year), and his best line to that effect is "I don't think we have that many stupid clubs" (presumably the Rockies and Angels and White Sox didn't make the cut for Manfred).
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