With Mark Lerner still failing to scam Mayor Bowser into building a dome over Nats Park, the Nationals are taking their traditional day off after Opening Day which gives us plenty of time to let our imaginations run wild after one game. Here are four big thoughts after game 1 of 162.
The obvious big story of the day was MacKenzie Gore in his first career Opening Day start looking excellent against a tough Phillies lineup. Gore faced the minimum through six innings while setting a new Nationals record for strikeouts on Opening Day. Hey when you break a record held by a three-time Cy Young award winner in Max Scherzer it can only mean you’re ready to contend for your own.
Gore seems to have made a deliberate change to his pitch mix compared to previous years:
Year | Fastball | Slider | Curveball | Changeup | Cutter/Other |
2025 | 44% | 25% | 15% | 10% | 6% |
2024 | 55% | 14% | 20% | 9% | 2% |
2023 | 59% | 18% | 19% | 3% | 1% |
That’s a significant decrease in fastball usage compared to 2024 after a smaller decrease from 2023 to 2024. Yes, you can say it’s just one game, but last year Gore only had four games where his fastball usage was below 50% (45%, 48.5%, 48.9%, 49.5%). This is a large enough difference for me to think it’s intentional.
Looking deeper I think we can see the reason why: Gore was able to put his slider and curveball in the strike zone at will. In yesterday’s game Gore threw his slider in the strike zone 52% of the time and his curveball was in the zone 50% of the time. That’s a big step up from his 2024 averages of 39% and 44% respectively. Overall, that meant he was getting his pitches in the zone more (55% vs. 49% career) but in a way that kept hitters off-balance with a 65% in zone swing rate (71% career) that led to 16 called strikes. Pair that with an unbelievable 40% whiff rate and you get a 13 strikeout day. While Gore won’t be able to sustain such a high whiff rate, I think it’s reasonable to believe he can maintain his newfound breaking ball control and stick with the lower fastball rate which would be a good path to greater success.
Admittedly this was already 3/4 written in my head before Ruiz ruined it by swinging at a pitch that hit him in the ankle with two outs in the bottom of the ninth of a tie game. Because before that disastrous moment Keibert was having a great game at the plate. Ruiz got the first hit of the season for the Nationals (can anyone name all 20 first hitters?) and then in his second at-bat uncorked this beauty of a 12-pitch battle leading to a home run giving the Nats an early 1-0 lead.
Ruiz is not a guy who hits for a lot of power and he definitely doesn’t have speed, he also does not like to walk. What he wants to do is see the ball and hit the ball and without power and speed that means he’s going to have to do a lot more defensive batting like this. Fouling away close pitches, wearing down the pitcher, until he finds the one right pitch and gets it in play.
Yes, this seems like a lot of hullabaloo for a two-hit day, but last season Ruiz played 127 games and had two or more hits in only 25 of them, good for 157th in MLB. For someone with a career walk rate of 5% that is far too low.
All right I admit this one is a stretch but the title called for overreactions so that’s what I’m bringing!
This was a thought that popped into my head during the bottom of the eighth after Dylan Crews worked a walk, Jacob Young got hit by a pitch, and the two executed a double steal to give the Nats runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs, down two runs, and with the top of the lineup up. From there CJ Abrams grounded out for a run, James Wood struck out and García came through with a nice single to tie the game and that got me thinking of metaphors.
Early last season Abrams looked like he was becoming the runaway star and leader of the team earning his first All-Star game appearance, before throwing that away with a terrible second half leading to a demotion for off-the-field issues. Abrams and the Nats seem to have put that behind them but it’s tough to be the team leader/face of the team after everything that went down. Wood seemed like the next natural leader but he has not seemed to want the mantle yet. García on the other hand was far and away the Nats’ best player last season, a full 0.5 wins ahead of the next best player Jacob Young.
The Nationals did not go out and get a true veteran leader this offseason, but García, despite being only 25 can be seen as a grizzled veteran, entering his sixth season (third full) in MLB. While he hasn’t been on a playoff team García has shared a clubhouse with Nats greats like Ryan Zimmerman, Juan Soto, and Max Scherzer. If he can continue to perform at a high level he seems like a natural fit to be able to relate to a very young team while imparting what it means to play the Nationals way (successful era).
In the immediate aftermath of the game I thought this was going to be another section on how Davey Martinez struggled to manage the bullpen, but after looking through the situations again and the pitchers he had available there’s plenty of blame to go around. Martinez had two left-handed relievers (Jose A. Ferrer and Colin Poche) for a lefty-heavy Phillies lineup. He deployed both Ferrer and Poche in good situations for the Nats and both rewarded him by giving up big hits and walks to the lefties they were brought in to get out.
To start, in the seventh, after letting Lucas Sims face the first three batters, two of them righties, Martinez decided to bring Ferrer in to try to get lefty Kyle Schwarber out and end the inning. Ferrer instead gave up a home run on his first pitch to put the Phillies ahead by one. Ferrer then got out of the inning by striking out Realmuto and setting up a Phillies eighth where 3 of the first 4 batters would be left-handed.
Obviously, the home run to Schwarber was not a great sign, but with only two lefties in the bullpen and Ferrer only having thrown five pitches it makes sense to stick with him against a lefty-heavy bottom of the lineup. Ferrer instead gave up a double to lefty Max Kepler, a single to move Kepler to third, and then got the next two lefties out. Not the worst situation, but again not exactly what you hoped for with your lefty-on-lefty bottom of the order matchups.
Here’s where the blame switches to Davey though, as Ferrer was now up to 25 pitches, his usual max, and facing Trea Turner, who you may remember crushes left handed pitching. Despite having five fresh right handed arms in the bullpen ready to go, for some reason he sticks with Ferrer. The tired Ferrer then uncorks a wild pitch to hand the Phillies another run, walks Turner and then gets lucky as Bryce Harper just gets under one too much to end the inning.
García ties it up to give the Nationals new life and Martinez turns to his other lefty, Poche, as 3 of the first 5 batters are left handed, including their best hitters Harper and Schwarber. Poche starts off well getting Brandon Marsh to strike out, then scores a bonus by getting Turner to pop out. Now facing Harper, the hitter Davey put him in to face, Poche proceeds to walk him on five pitches, none of them close to the strike zone.
With runners on the corners and two outs Davey stuck with Poche against Alec Bohm who has a 135 career wRC+ versus lefties and 91 wRC+ versus righties. You can sort of see the thought process of wanting to keep your last lefty in so they can face Schwarber, but that ignores that the Nats were already in a dangerous position with a runner on third. It also misses that Bohm’s splits are actually more extreme than Schwarber’s (106 wRC+ lefties, 130 righties). Just like with Ferrer, this was another case where Davey had plenty of firepower in the bullpen to turn to and instead waited until after the damage was done. This time the damage was worse as Bohm doubled to score two runs and take the lead. Then to add insult to injury, Poche managed to walk Schwarber on five pitches nowhere close to the zone. Davey finally makes the switch and is rewarded with a two-RBI triple by JT Realmuto effectively ending the game.
So in summary, the Nats two left handed relievers faced eight left handed batters and gave up a triple slash of .333/.500/1.000 to them and then twice, Davey let them hang out on the mound as they gave up runs against tough right handed hitters. That’s not a great sign for long term success.
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