After a great Opening Day win for the Nationals, they got a reality check with a rough 10-2 defeat this afternoon. It was a sloppy defensive performance where the Nats struggled with the sun and wind. The worst of it came in the Cubs four run second inning. However, there were still a couple encouraging things, which we will break down.
Let’s start with the biggest positive of the afternoon, which was James Wood. The Nats big slugger struggled heavily this spring and went 0/5 with 4 strikeouts on Opening Day. However, he smashed a home run this afternoon and after a strikeout to lead off the game, his at bats looked better.
Wood put the ball in play in three of his four at bats, which is a great sign. His homer was also a classic James Wood oppo-bomb. It was a low line drive that just kept carrying due to how much thunder Wood has in his bat. We know what James Wood can do when he is right, it is all about getting the big man locked in.
A singular home run is not enough to erase the concerns, but it is a step in the right direction. The quality of his at bats today were also positive. He needs to keep stacking those good at bats and get back to peppering the ball to the opposite field. Wood has all the talent in the world, but he seemed to have lost his swing. Hopefully today is the first step towards re-capturing that magic.
The other positive came at the end of the game when Nasim Nunez made one of the craziest plays you will ever see. He made a diving play and did a full roll before firing an absolute dart that got to Luis Garcia Jr’s glove on the fly. Nunez is an absolute wizard at shortstop and he plays with such joy as well. He also had an RBI base hit today.
However, this was a rough day for the Nats overall. For most of the game, they looked very sloppy both on the mound and in the field. The Cubs second inning rally came almost exclusively from walks and poor defense by the Nats.
Miles Mikolas pitched a bit better than his line would suggest, but he was still shaky. His two walks in the second inning started the Cubs big rally. The veteran also allowed a home run to Miguel Amaya, which really put the game away. He did give the Nats five innings and mostly kept the ball off the barrel.
He was let down by some comical defense. The worst of it came in the aforementioned second inning where the Nats just could not seem to catch a pop up. Mikolas executed against Miguel Amaya and Michael Busch, but his defense let him down. The Amaya pop-up was a tough play for Luis Garcia Jr, but one he could have made. If James Wood weren’t playing way off the line, he could have had a chance, but that stuff can happen.
However, the next play is something you cannot see. The Nats looked like the bad news bears trying to catch a Michael Busch pop up. Nasim Nunez and Daylen Lile did not communicate, which led to the two of them running into each other. Neither caught the ball and disaster ensued. That routine pop up would have ended the inning as well.
The Nats are likely to be a bad defensive team, but I really hope they can clean this stuff up as the year goes on. Nunez should have let the outfielder Lile get that ball. While Nunez is an amazing defender, there are times where he can try and do too much. If the Nats want to be respectable, they cannot play that kind of defense.
Another thing they cannot do is give out free passes like candy. The Nats walked six today, and the Cubs took advantage of that. Ken Waldichuk even walked in a run. The bullpen was pretty rough today, but it was the B bullpen out there for the most part. Cole Henry was the only real high leverage arm we saw today, and he looked good.
This will not be the last time the Nats have an ugly defeat like this. However, they are going to have to learn from this. They need to play cleaner defense and play smarter. One thing I noticed was that Drew Millas was not aggressive enough on challenges. There was a borderline pitch in a 3-2 count to Pete Crow-Armstrong that was not challenged. Even if it is close, it is worth challenging to try and keep PCA off the bases.
Hopefully the Nats can learn from this and bounce back tomorrow. Each team has had a big win in this series and now they will have a rubber match. Jake Irvin will look to give the Nats their first series win of the year tomorrow afternoon. It was just not meant to be this afternoon.
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