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Photo by Jake Stephens<\/a>\/TalkNats)<\/p>\n The Washington Nationals finally make their first trip to Port St. Lucie on the final day in February to take on the Mets. Today\u2019s lineup features several potential starting players and Jake Irvin<\/a> on the mound. Everyone will be curious to see his velo on his 4-seam fastball today. He is throwing a lot more cutters in his pitch mix, and fewer 4-seam fastballs.<\/p>\n We also get to see Seaver King<\/a> start once again in the middle infield. Nasim Nunez<\/a> gets the start at shortstop. And Harry Ford<\/a> gets another start at catcher. The Nats are giving lots of reps to five of their catchers which includes Ford, Keibert Ruiz<\/a>, and Drew Millas<\/a> who are all on the 40-man roster plus Riley Adams<\/a> and Tres Barrera<\/a> are getting a lot of playing time. On top of that, the team\u2019s top catching draft pick in the team\u2019s history, Caleb Lomavita<\/a> (1st round 39th overall in 2024), has seen some playing time. For some Nats draft trivia, the next two highest catcher\u2019s draft picks in Nats history were Kevin Bazzell<\/a> at pick 79 of the 3rd round in 2024, and Jakson Reetz<\/a> at the 93rd pick of the 3rd round in 2014.<\/p>\n At this point, we only have eight Spring Training games in the books, and no batter has more than 12 plate appearances<\/a> on the Washington Nationals. And for that matter, no pitcher has more than 4.0 innings<\/a>.<\/p>\n Remember, players are working on some of the intricacies of their game \u2014 and yes, some just are not good enough yet for the MLB competition. The Nats have had 53 batters step into the box, and 25 of them have no hits. Dylan Crews<\/a> got his first hit of the Spring Training last night. But should Andres Chaparro<\/a> and Warming Bernabel<\/a> be named starters because they are both 2-for-5 and batting .400?<\/p>\n Process means a lot in small sample size analysis. But we also need to know back-stories of what players are working on. Would you not play James Wood<\/a> and Daylen Lile<\/a> due to the fact that neither have hits going into this game? Of course not. <\/p>\n Also, Jacob Young<\/a> appeared in his first game after suffering a hand\/wrist injury on being plunked by a HBP in live BP by a teammate, Bryce Montes De Oca. Not even three minutes into last night\u2019s game, Young jumped over the fence to rob Jose Altuve<\/a> of a lead-off home run. Young only played three innings, and was replaced by Andrew Pinckney<\/a> in center field. In the 5th inning, a flyball wasn\u2019t reached by Pinckney for a 2-run single with two outs. We\u2019ve seen Young with his great reads catch those balls. If he is in there, he probably saves 3-runs on defense. That is what defense is worth. In football, it\u2019s like an interception Pick-6 as they call them. Points picked up by the defense.<\/p>\n Washington Nationals vs. New York Mets<\/p>\n Stadium:\u00a0Clover Park, Port St. Lucie, Florida \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Jake Stephens\/TalkNats) The Washington Nationals finally make their first trip to Port St. Lucie on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":["post-172900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
1st Pitch:\u00a01:10 PM EDT
TV:\u00a0SNY and MLB app
Radio:\u00a0N\/A<\/p>\n