Capital Offense: Mariners at Nationals Series Preview

The Mariners wrap up their long road trip with three games in the nation’s capital.

It feels pretty lucky that the Mariners escaped New York with a series split and a 3-4 record over their last seven games against the best the American League has to offer. They looked truly competitive in just one of those seven games and still emerged with three wins thanks to two late-game rallies. It doesn’t really matter if they earned those victories or not, they’re banked in the win column and the M’s can now turn their attention to their final series on this long East Coast road trip.

Despite being in the middle of a long rebuild following their 2019 World Series victory, the Nationals have actually been a pretty tough opponent this year. They have series wins against the Dodgers and Astros under their belts already, began this month with a .500 record, and have generally looked a bit better than expected coming into the season. Most of that overperformance can be attributed to a pitching staff that’s had a number of members take significant steps forward this year. They’ve also enjoyed contributions from a few key veterans like Jesse Winker and Eddie Rosario. Despite all those positive signs, they’ve stumbled a bit recently, losing eight of their last ten games.

With the majority of their position player prospects still working their way through their farm system, there are just a few core offensive pieces that are currently on the major league roster. CJ Abrams is probably the most important of those youngsters. He was one of the headlining players in the return in the big Juan Soto trade with San Diego and has blossomed into a top-of-the-order speed and power threat. Still just 24 years old despite portions of five big league seasons under his belt, Luis García Jr. looks like he’s finally breaking out, making good on the lofty expectations he had as a prospect. And then there are guys like Winker, Rosario, Nick Senzel, and Joey Gallo who are all fighting for a shot to stick in the majors, some more successfully than others.

Probable Pitchers

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MacKenzie Gore had an up-and-down season last year after headlining San Diego’s portion of the Juan Soto trade. He managed to get his command sorted out a bit and leaned on his two fantastic breaking balls to earn a ton of swings and misses. Unfortunately, when batters weren’t whiffing, they crushed his pitches — particularly his four-seam fastball — to the tune of a .434 expected wOBA on contact. He’s taken a pretty big step forward this year and it’s mostly due to a significant improvement on his heater. He’s locating that pitch up in the zone a lot more often which has helped him avoid all that loud contact. His breaking balls are as good as ever and his command has only continued to improve. He’s finally looking like the frontline ace the Nationals were hoping to receive.

Trevor Williams has had short stints of success in the past but he had settled in as a journeyman innings eater for the Nationals last year. Fast forward a year and he’s putting up the best numbers of his career. The biggest difference maker for him has been the addition of a sweeper to his repertoire, immediately becoming his best pitch. It’s running a whiff rate north of 40% and opposing batters have all sorts of trouble putting it in play with any authority. The rest of his arsenal is pretty lackluster but the addition of that one big breaker has elevated the effectiveness of the rest of his pitches.

Patrick Corbin’s fall from his peak has been pretty dramatic. His strikeout rate sat around 30% when he was a key member of the Nationals championship squad in 2019 but that metric has dropped precipitously year-over-year since then. It sits at just 12.9% this year as he’s made the full transition to crafty, innings-eating lefty now. He’s added a cutter to his repertoire this year to sit somewhere between his fastballs and slider and give him a third option to keep right-handed batters at bay.

The Big Picture:

There was no joy for any of the other teams in the AL West this week. The Rangers were swept by the Phillies and have now lost nine of their last 12 games and have only scored 2.4 runs per game during this cold streak. They’ll head to Minnesota to face the Twins this weekend. The Astros also lost their series to the Angels earlier this week and lost a lot of the momentum they had gained during their brief hot streak last week. They’ll head to Oakland looking to get back on track over the weekend ahead of the big four-game series in Seattle next week.