The Washington Nationals came into the 2015 season with incredible expectations. They had just acquired prized free agent starting pitcher Max Scherzer to add to an already-stout starting rotation, and everything was looking good for the Nats to possibly win their first World Series in team history.
The signing of Scherzer even prompted star outfielder Bryce Harper to deliver the line, “where’s my ring,” to David Jones of USA Today.
Unfortunately for them, nothing has gone even close to how they had planned. Leadoff hitter and offensive catalyst Denard Span has barely played, the trio of Anthony Rendon, Ryan Zimmerman and Jayson Werth have missed significant time and the pitching staff hasn’t live up to the offseason hype.
But while all that is bad, the club hasn’t been helped out at all by its manager. Matt Williams is still living in the Stone Age when it comes to employing his relief pitchers, and it’s getting downright comical.
The first exhibition of Williams’ misuse came in last year’s NLDS, when the Nationals were facing elimination against the Giants. In the late innings of a skin tight game, Williams brought in Aaron Barrett, Matt Thornton and Rafael Soriano to pitch in high-leverage situations. Meanwhile, the two best relievers on the team – Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen – and a fully rested Stephen Strasburg sat in the bullpen and watched the season end.
On Monday and Tuesday against the Cardinalds, Williams’ mismanagement was on full display. In the first game of the series, the Nats were winning 5-3 in the bottom of the seventh after Zimmerman hit a clutch go-ahead three-run homer. However, Casey Janssen imploded in the inning, allowing four runs, and Washington fell another game behind the Mets, who beat the Phillies that night.
The initial reaction was that it was stupid for Williams not to turn to Storen as the seventh inning was unraveling, but after the game it was revealed that Storen was unavailable.
The sad thing, though, is that even if Storen would have been available, Williams likely wouldn’t have used him. The Nats manager has the preconceived notion that Janssen will pitch the seventh inning, Storen the eighth and Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth. But, again, there is an asterisk by “Papelbon in the ninth,” because Williams has stubbornly refused to pitch Papelbon unless it is a save situation.
While that is the ideal usage, the Nationals are fighting for their lives in early September. They are falling farther and farther behind the surging Mets, so much so that they need to have a win-or-go-home attitude about every game.
Williams apparently disagrees. Because on Tuesday night, with the game tied 5-5 in the bottom of the ninth, he had the chance to use Papelbon, who hadn’t pitched in the series. But, of course, he didn’t, and Brandon Moss hit a walk-off three-run homer to put the Nats yet another game behind the Mets.
And what did Williams have to say after the game?
“What we tried to do last night was stay off Casey [Janssen] because he had such a heavy workload the night before,” the manager said on a radio interview.
Seriously? That’s kind of funny considering that is the exact opposite of what happened. Unless “staying off Casey” means pitching him in another important game the very next day after he threw 26 high-stress pitches, then it doesn’t make any sense.
In the ninth inning of a must-win game (they all are at this point), Williams had two options. He could have used a fresh Papelbon – the same Papelbon who the Nats liked so much that they traded for him at the deadline and displaced Storen as the closer – or a tired Janssen who had gotten hit around the night before.
For some reason, he elected to go with the latter, and they lost the game. And again, he tried to justify the decision.
“So everybody wants to know why you don’t use Papelbon in that situation,” Williams said. “Let’s say, for instance, ‘Pap’ throws a clean ninth and we score in the 10th. Who’s closing the game for us? I guess it’d be ‘Somebody,’ right?”
That’s exactly the point. In that situation, with the season slipping away, a clean ninth inning should be the only thing on the manager’s mind. Who cares about the tenth, eleventh or whatever, if you don’t hold the Cardinals scoreless in that one inning, nothing else matters.
Also, if Papelbon pitches a clean ninth, the Nats score in the tenth, how about having Papelbon pitch the tenth? Now Williams obviously doesn’t like anyone to pitch out of their set-in-stone “role,” but it’s not like Papelbon couldn’t handle it. He has only pitched in 11 of the 33 games that he has been with Washington and he has only pitched on consecutive days twice.
“All these people want to know why Papelbon isn’t in the game,” Williams said. “Because we lost. He’s our closer. He’s the one that closes the game.”
It’s simple, actually.
IF YOU DON’T GET TO EXTRA INNINGS, THERE’S NO GAME TO CLOSE.
Barry Svrluga of the Washington Post put it in a bit more diplomatic form.
“Except on a night the Nationals had to win, there was no game to close,” Svrluga wrote in a recent column. “What’s striking here isn’t just that Williams didn’t put Papelbon in the game, but that he didn’t consider it. Not Tuesday night and, it appears, not in the future. His cast-in-stone stance on the issue is jarring because, by his own words, he wouldn’t consider using a reliever out of his assigned role no matter the situation, no matter the consequences. He hasn’t changed after 2014, when Bruce Bochy badly out-managed him in the playoffs. What makes us think he’ll change after Sept. 2, 2015?”
Thus, the guy who is ostensibly the best reliever on the team does not pitch in either of the two games that the Nats needed to win.
Ultimately, in the most important part of the game, common sense says that you would want your best pitcher to be on the mound. The Nats went out and acquired Pap for situations just like this – he is supposed to be the guy to put up a zero when they need it most – but Williams just won’t fully utilize him.
It’s a sad statement, but it’s the truth: Williams just does not have the ability to get the fullest potential out of the weapons that he has at his disposal.
So whatever happens – however the season ends for the Nationals – the Washington front office needs to take a long look at who they want patrolling the dugout in 2016.
Heck, even if the Nats do make a brilliant comeback and find a way to slip into the postseason, they probably won’t win the elusive championship that 89-year-old owner Ted Lerner so craves.
Because in October, the games are always close, just like Monday and Tuesday.
And we know how that ended.