Photo by Andrew Lang/TalkNats
The Washington Nationals have just tonight and tomorrow afternoon’s game remaining in Florida on the Grapefruit League schedule. After Saturday’s game, the Nats will fly home to the DMV to get ready for two games against Baltimore. The Nats enter this game with a 13-8 record.
Manager Blake Butera has to be thinking of Opening Day which is now only six days away. There are two more position player cuts to be made, and we expect that Tres Barrera will be one of them, and the other will be an outfielder from a pool of Dylan Crews, Christian Franklin, and Joey Wiemer — and the team decided it would be Crews.
❝Ultimately, it’s always a hard decision, these types of moves this late in spring. One thing that we made sure Dylan was aware of is, we absolutely believe in Dylan. Our thoughts on Dylan as a person, as a player, have only changed in a positive direction. We just think the best thing for Dylan and the organization right now is at least for him to start in Triple-A.
Credit to Dylan, he took it like a pro. He was awesome, awesome. These are never easy [conversations], and he looked us in the eye the entire time, understood, said he was going to do everything he needed to do in Triple-A. We told him it’s our job to make sure he has a clear understanding of what we need him to work on while he’s there — which our hitting group is going to lay out for him tomorrow before we leave — and we’re going to touch base with him basically every day while he’s there, just to make sure he’s continuing to hit those marks. His response was like, I understand this is tough but I’m going to go do my thing and I’m going to show you guys when I’m ready to go.
❞
— Butera said
At this point, we only have 24 Spring Training games in the books and the one exhibition game, and no batter has more than 42 official plate appearances on the Washington Nationals. And for that matter, no pitcher has more than 13⅓ innings in official games.
Also, 68 Nationals have had at least one plate appearance with another two entering games without plate appearances for a total of 70 position players. On top of that, 54 Nats’ pitchers have appeared in games.
The other roster battle is in the bullpen with 12 relievers remaining for just eight spots. Listed in alphabetical order, you have:
Clayton Beeter Andre Granillo Cole Henry Brad Lord Griff McGarry Cionel Pérez PJ Poulin Orlando Ribalta Paxton Schultz Drew Smith Gus Varland Ken Waldichuk
Washington Nationals vs. Miami Marlins
Stadium: Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium, Jupiter, Florida
1st Pitch: 7:10 PM EDT
TV: N/A
Radio: Marlins Radio and the MLB app
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