Going into the first of two with the New York Mets yesterday, the Washington Nationals’ pitching staff, the club mentioned in their pregame notes, had “a 0.78 ERA (6 ER/69.0 IP) with 58 strikeouts, 15 walks, and a .176 opponents’ batting average [in] the [previous] eight games,” and, “according to the Elias Sports Bureau, this stretch of six earned runs in eight games [was] the best in Nationals’ history (2005-[present]), and [was] the best eight-game stretch in MLB this season.”
Of course, as just about everyone noted, it was also a stretch in which they only had Max Scherzer on the mound for 12 pitches (before he left his outing against the San Francisco Giants last Friday), and were without Stephen Strasburg, who’s been on the IL since early June with nerve issues in his back/neck.