Thursday’s News & Notes
| Team | Yesterday | Today | Pitching Probables |
| Rochester | Lost, 5-3 | vs. Lehigh Valley, 11:05 a.m. | Tomshaw (0-5, 8.72) vs. Alexander (2-2, 5.29) |
| Harrisburg | Lost, 5-4 | @ Altoona, 6:30 p.m. | S. Romero (0-0, 0.00) vs. Cruz (1-2, 2.92) |
| Wilmington | Won, 19-6 | @ Hudson Valley, 7:05 p.m. | Parker (0-1, 2.70) vs. TBD |
| Fredericksburg | Lost, 13-8 (10 innb.) |
vs. Delmarva, 7:05 p.m. | Rutledge (0-1, 18.00) vs. Denoyer (5-2, 2.70) |
| FCL Nationals | Lost, 6-4; Lost, 7-0 |
OFF DAY | |
| DSL Nationals | OFF DAY | @ DSL Angels, 10:30 a.m. |
| No word yet on which players will be recalled to take the place of the Washington players going on the COVID-19 Injured List, but they will be referred to as The Delta Force™. |
Lehigh Valley 5 Rochester 3
• Braymer (L, 2-7) 3IP, 5H, 5R, 5ER, 3BB, 5K, HR, WP
• Bonnell 3IP, 2H, 0R, 0BB, 1K
• Palka 3-4, RBI
• Reetz 1-2, BB, SF, 2RBI
Lehigh Valley broke open a 1-0 game with a four-run 4th and cruised to a 5-3 win over Rochester. Ben Braymer lost for the seventh time while giving up his 12th HR in 13 appearances, with all five runs allowed on five hits and three walks. Bryan Bonnell (3IP), Nick Goody (2IP), and Dakota Bacus (1IP) combined for six shutout innings of relief. Daniel Palka drove in one with an RBI single but ran into an inning-ending double play trying to advance to third base on a Jakson Reetz sac fly in the 6th. Reetz would draw a bases-loaded walk in the 8th for the third and final Rochester run. Roster moves: C Tres Barrera optioned from Washington.
Altoona 5 Harrisburg 4
• Reyes 6IP, 7H, 4R, 4ER, 2BB, 4K, HR, HBP, WP
• Teel (L, 1-5) ⅔ IP, 1H, 1R, 1ER, 0BB, 1K, HR
• Banks 3-5, R, HR, RBI
• Canning 2-4, R, 2B, RBI
The longball was the downfall of the Senators, including a solo shot in the 8th that put the Curve on top, 5-4 for Harrisburg’s fifth straight loss. Luis Reyes gave up three runs on a home run and four runs total over six innings, with seven hits allowed, two walks, and four strikeouts. Carson Teel allowed the game-winning HR (#14 in 62⅔ IP) for his fifth loss. Nick Banks led the Sens offense with two singles and a homer, followed by Gage Canning with a single and a double.
Wilmington 19 Hudson Valley 6
• Troop (W, 5-4) 5IP, 5H, 2R, 2ER, BB, 4K
• Antuna 4-5, 4R, 4-2B, E(18)
• Meregildo 3-5, 3R, HR, BB, 2RBI
• Rhinesmith 2-6, 3R, 2B, HR, 3RBI, SB(19)
• Mendoza 1-2, 2R, 4BB, RBI
Conversely, Wilmington went medieval on the buttocks of Hudson Valley with four homers, five doubles, and 15 hits in a 19-6 victory – the first back-to-back wins since a doubleheader sweep on July 15. Alex Troop picked up the win with five innings of two-run ball on five this and a walk while striking out four. Yasel Antuna finally got off the interstate with four doubles in five AB’s, raising his BA to .210. Jacob Rhinesmith, Andrew Pratt, Omar Mergegildo, and Israel Pineda each went deep to combined for seven RBI. Paul Witt was the beer man with an 0-for-5 night and three of the team’s 16 strikeouts.
Delmarva 13 Fredericksburg 8 (10 inn.)
• Theophile 4IP, 4H, 4R, 3ER, 2BB, 5K, HR, WP, 2HBP
• Yankosky (BS, 1) 1IP, 1H, 3R, 1ER, 1BB, 0K, WP, 2HBP
• Stainbrook (L, 1-1) ⅔ IP, 6H, 5R, 5ER, 0BB, 1K, HBP
• Méndez 2-4, R, 2RBI, HBP
• Boone 2-4, 2R, BB, SB
• Vega 2-4, R
The F-Nats rallied from down 4-1 in the 3rd and 7-5 in the 9th but disintegrated in the 10th for a 13-8 loss. Rodney Theophile went the first four and put on eight baserunners with four hits, two walks, and two hit batsmen, with four coming in to score in four innings. Tyler Yankosky blew a 5-4 lead with three runs allowed in the 9th but held the beer for Troy Stainbrook, who gave up six in the top of the 10th on six hits, no walks, and a Victor Robles. Fredericksburg squeezed eight runs out of nine hits (all singles), seven walks, and two hit batsmen. Just three of those hits came in nineteen (19) chances with RISP as the F-Nats left on ten baserunners. Ricardo Méndez, Jake Boone, and Onix Vega each went 2-for-4 to lead the singles party.
FCL Astros 6 FCL Nationals 4 – COMP.
In the completion, Landon Dietrich’s solo HR tied it at 4-4 in the bottom of the 8th but the FCL Astros got to Jose Ferrer for two in top of the 9th to drop the FCL Nats, 6-4. Chris “Chevy” Vann got out of the bases-loaded jam and pitched a scoreless 6th. Brian Klein and Christopher De La Cruz both walked and stole a base in the 9th but a 5C-3 DP that came in between proved to be too much to overcome.
FCL Astros 7 FCL Nationals 0
• Hiraldo (L, 1-4) 1⅔ IP, 7H, 6R, 5ER, BB, 3K, HR
• M. Gomez 3IP, 3H, R, ER, 0BB, 3K, WP, HBP
• Coutts 1-3
• Marte 0-2, BB
Two FCL Astros combined on a one-hit, one-walk shutout of the FCL Nationals, 7-0. Bernardo Hiraldo took his fourth loss in six appearances as he was strafed for six runs (five earned) on seven hits (one HR), and a walk in just an inning and 2/3rds. Daniel Marte led off the game with a walk to end the perfect game while Jackson Coutts broke up the shutout with a leadoff single in the 2nd.
DSL NAtionals – OFF DAY
The D-Nats resume play against the D-Angels today, tomorrow, and Saturday as they look to break a three-game losing streak.
Maybe the scouts were onto something after all about Antuna… he’s hitting .350/.435/.538 in his past 20 games. If you go even further back and drop his horrendous May, he’s hitting a respectable .267/.343/.438 from June-July in 48 games.
However, even with all that said, this is still only the 4th good month of baseball from Antuna in 4 seasons of baseball (he also had a hot July in 2018 after a similarly miserable start, plus he had a good July and August in his first season in 2017), which raises a really interesting point: Antuna has to be the slowest player I’ve witnessed to “get up to speed”. Check out his monthly OPS:
2017 (Jun-Aug): .708, .755, .844.
2018 (Apr-Jul): .506, .598, .603, .846
2021 (May-Jul): .388, .651, .889
See the trend here?
I’ve ranted about this before, but surely there’s a way to fix this, like being more proactive with Antuna in the offseason, so that he doesn’t basically have to keep restarting from scratch each season. It’s not a problem unique to Antuna. A month or so ago, I showed how almost every single prospect of note in the Nats farm system started slow, before re-finding their swing, which seems to be a problem uniformly unique to Nationals batters (league batting performance didn’t appear to drop in May in the minors, just the Nats affiliates).
Maybe they could start by paying their players a living wage. Heck, give them modest bonuses for complying with fitness regimens and diets in the offseason, and I guarantee you the quality and readiness of our prospects would skyrocket across the board. But that would cost money, so it’s unlikely.
Meanwhile, we’ve now paid Stephen Strasburg $2.6m per inning the past two seasons…
Interesting stats. I’ve thought the Nats’ player development was seriously lacking on the pitching part. Rizzo drafts pitchers in the high rounds every year and few have had any success with the Nats. Now you’re telling us that the hitting side also needs work. Maybe Rizzo should consider making wholesale changes to his player development staff.
Nope. Our player development of both pitchers AND hitter has been atrocious.
Something surely has to give. Since Rendon was drafted a decade ago, the best draft pick the Nationals have developed is Erick Fedde, worth all of 1.4 WAR.
It gets worse…
Of the 350 or so players we’ve drafted since that 2011 draft in which we got Rendon, this is a list of all the players that have reached the majors for the Nats:
Fedde (1.4 WAR)
Austin Voth (1.0 WAR)
Andrew Stevenson (0.6 WAR)
Spencer Kieboom (0.5 WAR)
Ben Braymer (0.4 WAR, 7 IP)
Tres Barrera (0.2 WAR)
Koda Glover (0.2 WAR)
Jakson Reetz (0.1 WAR, 2 AB),
Cody Wilson (0.0 WAR 1 AB)
James Bourque (-0.1 WAR, 4 IP)
Jake Noll (-0.2 WAR)
Seth Romero (-0.2 WAR, 2 IP)
Austen Williams (-0.3 WAR)
Wil Crowe (-0.5 WAR)
In a decade of drafts and 350 players, we have received a collective 3.1 WAR.
Yeah, our player development staff could use some changes.
Oops, sorry Will, but I’m going to have to knock down your total by the -0.9 fWAR (or -0.8 bWAR) of Carter Kieboom. But thanks for putting that list together. It completely backs up what I’ve been trying to tell people as well. They’ve basically wasted a decade of drafting.
I still don’t count Fedde as solidly in a rotation slot going forward, which means the last starter the Nats drafted and developed was taken 1/1 in 2009. The last regular position player they’ve drafted and developed was taken 1/6 in 2011. The last reliever they’ve drafted who has stuck and had a significant impact was taken 1/10 in 2009.
And was unquestionably the most emotionally fragile player too
Anyone think there’s a chance that Jake Alu gets a promotion once we (hopefully) trade off every valuable asset in the next two days?
I’d love to see an infield of Noll-Alu-Garcia-Kieboom get a string of 40+ games to show what they’ve got. If we’re going to lose consistently (as we currently are), we might as well learn something from it!
I do agree that Jake Alu deserves a shot because he has played well since his promotion to HBG. But, I’ve been watching this game for many years and I’ve asked on many occasions why some players are promoted to the majors and why some aren’t. I get the same answer. The Nats want players with major league experience. Then the question I ask is, how can they get that experience if they never get a chance?
In this situation, I think they will look at the players on the AAA roster and move them up. Many have previously been on the Nats 40 man like Adrian Sanchez and Jake Noll. I understand that the Nats may look very different by tomorrow at 4pm but I highly doubt Rizzo will pull from AA to round out his active roster. Alu needs to hang in there and hopefully we’ll see him promoted to AAA shortly.
Rochester has a new catcher, Riley Austin, who was traded from the Blue Jays for Brad Hand.
His OPS this year is .858 at Buffalo. FanGraphs has him pegged as the #15 prospect.
That gives Rochester 4 catchers, with 1 (Read) on the IL.