Photo by Daniel Watson for TalkNats

The Washington Nationals got a really good day from their pitching on Saturday to win 4-2. There was certainly a power surge for the Nationals, but they still are not piecing together singles and doubles to score more runs.

This game marks the final West coast game of the season for the Nationals as they will fly next to Kansas City with just 45 games remaining in the season. First things first, the Nats have a series win to get today against the Giants.

What the Nats’ need is for their starter and All-Star, MacKenzie Gore, to show up as their ace. Since July 19, he has not been good. He has to re-find his former self and bring that success today. That could drastically change the Nats fortunes if the Washington pitching does their best. They face future Hall-of-Famer, Justin Verlander, who pitches for the Giants in this finale today.

“These guys have been fighting, and they’re resilient. I know it’s been tough lately, but today they came together and had good at-bats. We pitched good. We played good defense. We did the little things to win a ball game. It was a good team win.”

— Miguel Cairo said after yesterday’s game

The bullpen usage looks like this:

Here are your Nats’ WAR leaders with James Wood at +3.0, CJ Abrams at +2.7, MacKenzie Gore at +2.4. Add those up, and you get a total of +7.9 WAR. The issue is the large gap between those players and the next tier.

On defense, the OAA stats showed some improvement with a good defensive game yesterday. Jacob Young leads the team at +11, and CJ Abrams is on the opposite end at -10. That is actually quite the improvement over last year’s -18 for Abrams who is on pace to finish at -14.

These are your stats leaders on BBRef. There are certainly some surprises on there — good and not so good. The issue is the consistency on this team.

“You want 26 guys like [Brad Lord] on your team. He’s a hard worker. He knows how to pitch. He knows how to attack the strike zone. He believes in the stuff that he has.”

— Cairo said after yesterday’s game

The Nats starting pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.98 and that places the starters at 3rd from last in MLB. The reliever’s ERA sits at a 5.88 and now the worst in baseball in ERA.

Here is how the starters rank by ERA:

No. 5 Starter: Cade Cavalli 0.00
No. 4 Starter: Mitchell Parker 5.43
No. 3 Starter: Brad Lord 3.28 (starting/relieving)
No. 2 Starter: Jake Irvin 4.90
No. 1 Starter: MacKenzie Gore 4.29

Washington Nationals vs. San Francisco Giants

Stadium: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California
1st Pitch: 4:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN2
Radio: 106.7 The Fan radio and via the MLB app; In Spanish on DC 87.7 FM and La Pantera 100.7 FM/1220 AM. On Sirius/XM, tune to Channel 185 for the home broadcast and the road team is online only.

Line-up subject to change (without notice):

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