Bryce Harper and the 2017 Nationals' depth problem

nomar, the rosenthal twitter account we refered to is fake.

In no order: Correa, Kershaw, Kluber, Bumgarner, Syndergaard, Donaldson, Trout, Freeman... feel like I'm missing obvious ones.

― Van Horn Street, Saturday, August 12, 2017 9:40 PM (one hour ago)

Harper's OF-mate Adam Eaton tore his ACL in April and will not play another game this season.

Doolittle OTM in this whole thread.

It's 2017. Actual Nazis just marched on #Charlottesville. We have to come together & drive this hatred & domestic terrorism from our country

— Sean Doolittle (@whatwouldDOOdo) August 13, 2017

this is all bryce harper's fault

oops, sorry, i thought you posted that on the wrong thread and was trying to make a dumb joke

good for doolittle!

This is encouraging:

http://www.tsn.ca/reports-harper-avoids-ligament-damage-1.829033

Awesome

Surprise!

While pitch counts are crude metrics, only 10 teams have allowed a starting pitcher to exceed 120 pitches this season; only two teams have allowed it to occur on multiple occasions.

Baker and the Nationals have accomplished it four times.

Baker is lapping the field....

It’s not curious just that Baker is leaning on his starters to an unusual degree relative to the league in 2017, but that he’s doing so at a time when the Nationals have a 14-game lead in the NL East and a 100% chance of reaching the NLDS according to FanGraphs playoff projections entering Monday. This would seem like the time to give players more rest when possible.

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/dusty-baker-is-throwing-caution-pitch-counts-to-the-wind/

btw what Nat leads the NL in pitching bWAR?

Gio Gonzalez

I was looking up something about Scherzer this morning and noticed that three of the Top 10 career leaders in K/9 currently pitch for the Nationals. Conceding there's a heavy era-bias there, that's still amazing--could you find another team in history where three of the top 10 anything played for one team? Maybe Ruth, Gehrig, and someone else were once 1-2-3 in career HR, I don't know.

Strasburg tossed a complete game shutout! only his second career shutout, and in his second career complete game. i remember the good ol days when a John Tudor could startle everyone and even himself and throw 10 shutouts in a season.

110 pitches... I suppose acceptable even in a meaningless game.

(ie, John Tudor threw almost 500 innings over his age 31 and 32 seasons, and only pitched one 'qualified' season after that. The price.)

the price of grit and determination, Dr.

the price of throwing your arm out

Scherzer (bruised calf) forced out after 5, hit by a comebacker

https://www.federalbaseball.com/2017/9/3/16247686/washington-nationals-max-scherzer-leaves-start-vs-brewers-after-comebacker-off-left-calf

Is Scherzer/Gonzalez/Strasburg the best front of the rotation since Halladay/Hamels/Lee? Probably forgetting others.

Division Champs!

btw what Nat leads the NL in pitching bWAR?

Still leading! This snuck up on me completely.

he's back, and not just in costume

http://www.csnmidatlantic.com/washington-nationals/bryce-harper-jayson-werth-awesomely-lead-nats-game-thrones-dress

not the best news

http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20874992/max-scherzer-washington-nationals-leaves-start-vs-pittsburgh-pirates-apparent-right-leg-injury

They sacked Dusty

along w/ the Chicago mold