Remember when the Nationals were baseball’s best road team? Yeah, not so much anymore. Three weeks ago, they were a remarkable 32-20 away from home, best in the majors. Since then, they’ve gone an atrocious 2-14, including 1-12 against the NL East. Which means they’re now 34-34 overall on the road this season, yet another sign of their drastic late-summer decline.
The Nats will try to salvage at least one win in Miami today in the final game of this nine-game road trip. They once again will need to find a way to produce at the plate without their best hitters. CJ Abrams remains out of the lineup for the fourth consecutive day with a sprained left ankle. The team has scored only four total runs in three games since he suffered the injury.
Jackson Kent makes his third MLB start, hoping to show some real improvement this time around. The left-hander has been plagued by command woes since his promotion from Triple-A Rochester, walking eight batters in only 7 2/3 innings. That has elevated his total pitch count to a whopping 162, preventing him from providing length.
I’m not in Miami for the series, as you know by now, but I’ll have a subscriber Q&A with Nasim Nunez publishing Monday morning and then I’ll be back to work for the opener of the upcoming 10-game homestand ...
WASHINGTON NATIONALS at MIAMI MARLINS
Where: loanDepot Park
Gametime: 1:40 p.m. EDT
TV: Nationals TV (channel listings)
Radio: 106.7 FM
Weather: Indoors
NATIONALS
LF Daylen Lile
DH Abimelec Ortiz
RF Dylan Crews
C Keibert Ruiz
2B José Tena
3B Jorbit Vivas
1B Andrés Chaparro
SS Nasim Nuñez
CF Jacob Young
LHP Jackson Kent
MARLINS
SS Otto Lopez
DH Agustín Ramirez
LF Heriberto Hernández
2B Xavier Edwards
CF Esteury Ruiz
3B Javier Sanoja
1B Deyvison De Los Santos
RF Griffin Conine
C Brian Navarreto
RHP Janson Junk