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Photo by Sol Tucker\/Nats.Talk<\/p>\n
The Washington Nationals wrap-up their Father\u2019s Day weekend in Tampa with a chance to win another series. The players, coaches, front office and staff, along with their fathers who made the trip to Tampa, will board the team\u2019s Delta charter jet for a flight back to Washington, DC after this game.<\/p>\n
With Saturday\u2019s 1-run win, the Nats now have a winning record in 1-run games at 11-10. The team also improved to 24-15 on the road. Now the team has to improve on getaway games \u2014 and they will get that opportunity today.<\/p>\n
After the team\u2019s best defensive performance of the season that was highlighted by a game-saving catch in the 8th inning by\u00a0Jacob Young<\/a>, the bullpen went 6 1\/3 innings, only giving up 1-run to get the win. The defense turned several spectacular plays by Young,\u00a0Dylan Crews<\/a>,\u00a0CJ Abrams<\/a>,\u00a0Nasim Nunez<\/a>,\u00a0Andres Chaparro<\/a>, and\u00a0Keibert Ruiz<\/a>. Even a hustle play by\u00a0Daylen Lile<\/a>\u00a0to take the ball from Young after he was injured on his highlight reel play was notable.<\/p>\n \u275dEarly on [in the season], we put in a ton of work on defense and we continue to do that. I\u2019m just happy to see some of the success we\u2019re having defensively and how much they\u2019re helping our pitchers. If we want our pitchers to throw strikes and attack hitters, we\u2019ve got to play really good defense.\u275e\u2014 manager\u00a0Blake Butera<\/a>\u00a0said after Saturday\u2019s game<\/p>\n The Nationals had their pitching rotation set for this weekend with\u00a0Cade Cavalli<\/a>\u00a0who was moved to yesterday\u2019s game after a bout with food poisoning yesterday. He only made it through 2 2\/3 innings in the game and was rescued by the bullpen.\u00a0Miles Mikolas<\/a>\u00a0took Cavalli\u2019s spot on Friday night, and\u00a0Andrew Alvarez<\/a>\u00a0is set to pitch on today.<\/p>\n On offense, the Nats are at the\u00a0top of MLB for the most runs scored<\/a>\u00a0this season at 413 runs and that is an impressive 5.36 runs per game. With the Nats pitching giving up 4.64\u00a0earned runs per game<\/a>, the difference is really those pesky unearned runs due to the errors. Overall, the Nats have a\u00a0+13\u00a0run differential on the season. Since April 19th, the Nats are the\u00a016th best in ERA in MLB<\/a>\u00a0in that span at 4.17.<\/p>\n After\u00a0Brad Lord<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mitchell Parker<\/a>\u00a0both pitched multiple innings, they won\u2019t be available for a while. Here is manager\u00a0Blake Butera<\/a>\u2018s bullpen chart:<\/p>\n The\u00a0FanGraphs WAR<\/a>\u00a0chart is accumulating data. The numbers are getting very large as the season is headed towards the halfway point on June 24. The\u00a0OAA defense stat<\/a>\u00a0is now giving us a picture of what the Nats have \u2014 and don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n Washington Nationals vs. Tampa Bay Rays<\/p>\n