The Morning Briefing: September 26

Good morning, Washington Nationals fans.

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, September 4.

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Leading this Morning's Briefing: Will the Nats Score Again This Season?

After back-to-back-to-back shutout losses to the Cubs and the Royals twice, the Nats are working on an offensive scoreless streak of thirty-one innings and counting. Today they face Michael Wacha, who has been one of the top ten pitchers in the AL this year, and then the Phillies come to town with a scheduled three of Ranger Suárez, Zack Wheeler, and Aaron Nola to roll out for the final series of the year. The young building blocks (James Wood, Dylan Crews, Keibert Ruiz, Luis García Jr., José Tena and Jacob Young if you want to include them) are all fading at the end of the season, CJ Abrams has been exiled to Florida, and the filler guys are, well, filler. It doesn't get easier.

Last Game Out

This particular shutout was of the two-hit variety (they also walked five times), the two being by James Wood and Nasim Nuñez. DJ Herz pitched pretty well (one run over five), but the run he gave up was the end result of walking the number nine hitter to lead off an inning.

Nationals Headline of the Day: Garrett Is Back (But Not Playing)

Over a year after his awful leg injury suffered while getting a cleat stuck in the wall at Yankee Stadium, Stone Garrett is back on the big league roster while Andrés Chaparro is on the paternity list. Hopefully he plays before Chaparro returns.

Down on the Farm

The minor league season is complete, and there was no new news yesterday.

Featured Baseball Story of the Day

The long and storied tenure of the Athletics is coming to a close in Oakland, and their owner is entirely to blame, at least in my humble opinion. Listen to Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman address his "stewardship" on Céspedes Bar-B-Cast.

Former National of the Day

In honor of the anemic Nats lineup these days, may I present one Ben Revere, who manned the outfield (mostly center) for 103 games in 2016. Revere had been an empty calories singles hitter with a just-below-league-average OPS the preceding four seasons for the Twins, Phillies, and Blue Jays, but promptly went in the tank when he joined the Nats in his age-28 season, hitting .217/.260/.300 for a 47 OPS+ and having a career low in stolen bases (14). He played one more season in the majors and was done before he turned 30.

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