The Washington Nationals are fighting for a chance to be one of the teams that make it into the playoffs this year. In the beginning of the season, the Nats were favorites to win the division in the NL East, but things didn’t go their way and that didn’t happen.
Just for the record, the Phillies were officially mathematically eliminated from the playoffs on Saturday, it’s something we knew was going to happen and with the math adding up against them, it now is impossible for the team to make any playoff appearance for the second year in a row.
The Phillies are able to play spoiler and last night, they did just that. Behind a strong appearance from Cole Hamels, the Phillies were able to hold on to a 5-4 lead after being up on the Nationals by a 5-1 score until the bottom of the 7th inning when the Nationals scored 3 runs and threatened to break the game open in their favor. The Nats could only get within 1 run and the Phillies bullpen was able to close the door on the Nats, who were red hot in winning their last 7 games straight.
For the Phillies, they won this game but they are still struggling mightily in producing runs, the team is 28th overall in the MLB with the Phil’s OBP (On Base Percentage) being .306 which is 26th in the MLB, that of course has been the biggest problem with Phillies this season.
The Nats only have a 2 percent chance to make the playoffs, for them they just have to keep on winning. Jayson Werth has the team high batting average high at .321 for the season, Desmond, Span, and Zimmerman are all right behind him all at .280 or better. That is the kind of batting you need to win ballgames.
Consider the Phillies top hitters, Chase Utley leads the Phillies with .276 in 427 AB, Chooch has a slightly higher average at .292 but he only has 277 AB on the season. It gets worse from there, as the Phillies have been moving people around in so many different positions this year, it’s hard to say who plays where, even now.
The Phils will face a Nationals pitcher tonight that has the most wins in the NL at the moment, which is 17. Jordan Zimmermann is leading the NL and he’s going against a pitcher for the Phillies that desperately needs to show some positive things for himself, Tyler Cloyd.
Tyler Cloyd was supposed to be a highly touted pitcher for the Phillies, and what we’ve seen from his so far hasn’t been to spectacular. His last outing against the Padres saw him give up 7 ER, in just 4 innings. He looked promising in his first two starts this season which goes back to May 10 and the 21st, but since then, he’s been up and down with a 2-4 record and a 4.56 ERA
