G&D: Dave Jageler understands why Nats not rushing to call up James Wood

The Nationals enter play tonight an above-.500 team for the first time since July 2021 – and they’re only going to get better.

Davey Martinez did say Wednesday that even though James Wood is not in the plans just yet despite tearing it up at Triple-A, including a two-homer game for Rochester today…and radio voice Dave Jageler thinks that’s the right call.

“One thing that Davey said that he has struggled with, and I'm not seeing the games and haven’t looked up the splits, but apparently his strikeout rate is really high against lefties,” Jageler said. “There's some concern there about him going left on left, and if you call him up, you're obviously not going to platoon him, so I think they feel there's still some development there.”

Right now, Jesse Winker and Jacob Young are producing, Victor Robles is back, Joey Gallo is on rehab and, as Jageler revealed, Lane Thomas is taking BP on the field so he’s likely close to an assignment – meaning the Nats’ outfield/1B/DH situation is getting crowded again.

GP even says that ‘you can always find a reason to justify keeping a guy in the minor leagues,’ so, why rush the top prospect before he checks the boxes, when ‘playoff chase’ mode is still a couple weeks away – and he’s 5-for-27 with 10 Ks against southpaws?

“I think probably that's the last step in the process is to him to have a consistent approach against left-handed pitching. That's all I've got for you because the numbers look pretty impressive,” Jageler said. “It surprises me how few at bats he's had there, but it's not like he's sitting out; I think it must just be fluky that whatever teams they're playing, he's not getting a lot of it at-bats against lefties for some reason. So, it's gonna be kind of tough for him to put up numbers unless maybe there's some series where the other team stacks three lefty starters, and he goes out and has a few good games and then you say, okay, now we're over that hurdle.”

You can hear Jageler’s entire segment from the Beltway Blitz, which includes thoughts on the strong start, Trevor Williams’ dominance, the stolen base surge, and more, up above!