It is almost two months ago that we had Series Preview #21, of the Washington Nationals visiting the Arizona Diamondbacks. At that moment, the Nationals was the team with the best offence in the entire league, scoring 331 runs, one more than the blasting Dodgers.
Oh my, did we get to know that, right? In the first game Merrill Kelly gave up 3 homeruns and the Diamondbacks looked to be begging for the implementation of the “mercy rule”, but Washington kept the score limited to 14 runs, with Arizona
being allowed to get one run in for such great hospitality.
The second game was better, though a 6-1 loss is far from anything that resembles a good performance.
In the final game of the series the Diamondbacks saved their face a bit. They took the game 5-1, finally scoring more than one run against what was one of the worst pitching corps and defences in the entire league (only slightly better than the Rockies).
The Nationals climbed mount .500 in Arizona and not much has changed since then, with Washington having a 52-51 record entering this series. The Diamondbacks, after wrapping up that disappointing series against Washington, had a 34-31 record and not much has changed since then either, although their 54-49 record is an improvement over then.
Washington is still one of the best offences in the entire league, leading MLB in different categories: 150 homeruns, 567 runs and 113 stolen bases. Their 113 OPS+ is just one tad below the Dodgers because of the worse walk-rate.
Their pitching, however, is still one of the worst in the league and rather wild. Their defence leads the MLB in a negative way with the lowest fielding percentage and most errors allowed.
Having played in St. Louis yesterday, the Diamondbacks will continue to play in what will be their longest “away game” series of the season, playing 10 games against the Cardinals, Nationals, Pirates and Cleveland.
Washington returns home after an away trip “out west” where they had a crazy series against the Athletics, scoring 23 runs in one game and allowing 15 in the next one, before settling down with a somewhat conventional 5-2 win in the final game of the series. After that, they took a 2-1 series win with them from Denver.
Matchups.
Game #1 Fri 07/24 3:45 PM MST, Eduardo Rodriguez (ARI) vs Carson Palmquist (WSN).
- Eduardo Rodriguez. 20 GS, 116.2 IP, 8 W-3 L, 2.62 ERA, 4.09 FIP, 1.22 WHIP, 82/41 K/BB. $18,000,000.
- Carson Palmquist. 7 G, 4 GS, 11.1 IP, 0 W-1 L, 8.74 ERA, 3.37 FIP, 1.68 WHIP, 14/3 K/BB. $375,390.
Carson Palmquist made his major league debut with the Colorado Rockies last season, but pitched in long relief in AAA in 2026 before he was designated for assignment, without making a single appearance in the MLB. That was at the end of May and the Nationals made a trade for cash with the Rockies to add Palmquist to their 40-man and option him to AAA. In a series of 3 moves involving pitchers being sent outright or onto the IL, Carson Palmquist was added to the big league roster on June 29. The results haven’t been great with Palmquist making his spot starts or wrapping up games. With Eduardo Rodriguez starting for the Diamondbacks, you don’t get much better opportunities to guarantee a win, though E-Rod’s last outing against the Cardinals wasn’t great and he took the loss in his previous matchup with the Nationals.
Game #2 Sat 07/25 1:05 PM MST, Mitch Bratt (ARI) vs Foster Griffin (WSN).
- Mitch Bratt. 3 GS, 10.2 IP, 0 W-0 L, 5.06 ERA, 7.42 FIP, 1.78 WHIP, 7/6 K/BB. $325,338.
- Foster Griffin. 20 GS, 67.0 IP, 6 W-2 L, 3.76 ERA, 4.90 FIP, 1.15 WHIP, 65/21 K/BB. $5,500,000.
Foster Griffin kept the Diamondbacks limited to just 1 run in that matchup with Merrill Kelly, when the Nationals slugged themselves to a 14-1 win. Though Griffin had allowed a lot of hard contact until then, and surely still allows, he has been pretty much excellent since that performance in Arizona, allowing one run in each one of his next matchups, not a run more and not a run less. That has lowered his ERA and FIP with a full point, when compared to when he pitched against Arizona, while also adding 4 wins to his total (3 no decisions). The Diamondbacks better be warned.
It certainly looks like the Diamondbacks might have to settle for a loss, because Mitch Bratt has bravely struggled against major league pitching his first time up. The Dodgers tagged him with 3 runs, and this team has an even better offence.
Game #3 Sun 07/26 10:35 AM MST, Kohl Drake (ARI) vs Miles Mikolas (WSN).
- Kohl Drake. 1 GS, 5.0 IP, 0 W-0 L, 1.80 ERA, 2.91 FIP, 1.20 WHIP, 5/2 K/BB. $337,851.
- Miles Mikolas. 21 G, 8 GS, 98.0 IP, 3 W-7 L, 5.60 ERA, 5.46 FIP, 1.34 WHIP, 51/20 K/BB. $2,250,000.
Kohl Drake did well in his first major league work as a starting pitcher and maybe he can keep the Diamondbacks long enough in this game to help to achieve a series win against the Nationals in what will be the final game of the series.
Mikolas has provided innings, but not much more for the Nationals. The entire season he has either started the game or pitched behind an opener, but in all cases the results haven’t been good. He is capable of shutting an offence down (5 times he has allowed 0 runs), but more often than not he allows multiple runs or gets blown away (6 times he allowed more than 5 runs).
