After a 10-0 defeat on Tuesday, the Washington Nationals have now dropped six of their last seven games. "I don't really take it too much to heart... a loss is a loss is a loss and they're all painful, you have to flush the bad ones and concentrate on the next day and that's the great thing about baseball you always have a game tomorrow," GM Mike Rizzo said during his weekly appearance on Wednesday with 106.7 The Fan's The Sports Junkies, which is presented exclusively by our partners at MainStreet Bank — Cheer Local. Bank Local. Put Our Team in Your Office. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender.
And Rizzo appeared to have flushed the defeat already when he was speaking with The Junks and was looking ahead to the future of getting Lane Thomas back off the injured list, expecting him to get his average up from .185 to .280, as well as getting other hitters cooking.
"[Thomas] is gonna be fine when he gets back. [Eddie Rosario] is hitting about .360 the last month so he's fine," Rizzo told the Junkies. "And we gotta get the rest of those guys going. We gotta get [CJ Abrams] back going. He's hit like the first lull of the season and gotta get him going. [Luis Garcia]'s cooled off a little bit.
"But our pitching is third in the National League and you've seen we're developing good, solid, young, controllable starting pitching which is the key to any turnaround when you're talking about these rebuilds.
"I think what you're seeing in Mitchell Parker and Jake Irvin and MacKenzie Gore and let's not forget about Josiah Gray and you've got [Cade Cavalli] down the road very shortly coming back. So you're seeing us put together good, young, controllable starting pitching that can win at the big league level and I think that's a big key to any team.
"And when you look at the position players that we got coming [down the pike from the minors] I think it's gonna be exciting."
And Rizzo is right to point out that outside of veteran Patrick Corbin, who has continued to struggle as he reaches the final year of his contract and started Tuesday's loss and has posted a 6.29 ERA through 10 games, the starters have all done quite well.
The young Nats' core has justified some real optimism: Parker has posted a 3.32 ERA and 3.46 FIP through 38.0 innings, Gore posted a 3.30 ERA and 3.16 FIP over 46.1 innings, and Irvin a 3.91 ERA and 3.32 FIP in 50.2 innings.
To listen to the full conversation – including an update on Cavalli and Jackson Rutledge – hit the audio player above!
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