The Nationals had an opportunity to beat the Braves for the first time this season on Monday. Not only did the Nats lose their fourth straight game to their chief division rivals, but they got scary news on two of their star players. Stephen Strasburg felt forearm tightness following his start, which is never good news for a pitcher and is more concerning when that pitcher has had Tommy John surgery in his past. We certainly won't pass judgement on what's going on until we here from doctors, though. For what it's worth, after the game, Strasburg said to Amanda Comak and other reporters, "I'm not missing my next start, I'll tell you right now." Jayson Werth, who fouled a ball hard off his ankle in his eighth inning at bat, left the game and said he also felt cramping in his hamstring prior to taking the ball to the ankle.

We'll have to see what happens on the injury front from here, but let's talk about a game that the Nats had ample opportunities to win but were unable to do so. Strasburg was shaky in his first five innings, struggling command, but he still managed to get through those innings on just 80 pitches including five strikeouts and fastball velocity in the mid-to-upper 90s while giving up just two runs on six hits. The most un-Strasburg-like part of his outing was his four walks. He came out for the sixth and managed to mow down Chris Johnson, Dan Uggla, and B.J. Upton on 13 pitches, all swinging strikeouts. His final four pitches of the game to B.J. Upton were all fastballs clocked at 96, 96, 97, 97, respectively. Not bad at all.

The Nationals got on the board early after Justin Upton scored in the first inning to give the Braves the early 1-0 lead. In the second, Adam LaRoche got of his 0-for-26 slump with an opposite field single over shortstop Andrelton Simmons head. The usually unemotional first baseman couldn't help but crack a smile as he stood on first base. Ian Desmond then lined a single to right, and Chad Tracy hit a grounder through the right side of the infield scoring LaRoche from second. Kurt Suzuki then pulled one through the left side of the infield to score Desmond, putting the Nats on top 2-1.

The Nats offense stopped there, unfortunately, but not for lack of opportunities. The Nats logged 10 hits and a walk throughout the game, but they stranded six runners on base, and were just 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position. Situational hitting was an issue for the Nats early in 2012, to, but this was a frustrating one to watch, especially when you saw the way Strasburg was battling despite not having his best stuff.

Tyler Clippard entered the game in the seventh, surrendering yet another walk that lead to the eventual game winning run scored by Freddie Freeman on a Gerald Laird single.

Some thoughts:

- Is it possible the lofty expectations for Stephen Strasburg have gotten us so spoiled that when Strasburg throws six innings in fewer than 100 pitches, gives up just two runs on six hits, and strikes out eight that we're concerned about his command? Strasburg still has a 3.13 ERA on the season, and while his four walks were not typical, he still managed to pitch with great results. Isn't that exactly what your ace is supposed to do?

- Tyler Clippard has been among the Nats most inconsistent relievers this season, some days he looks dominant with a changeup that hitters simply can't figure out, throwing it well off of his fastball. Others, like in this loss to the Braves, he cannot get his pitches down in the zone. Of the 19 pitches he threw in the seventh, I cannot remember one that was a strike that was down in the zone. We'll have more about this on the site soon.

- Drew Storen had what may have been the best outing of his season in the eighth inning. He breezed through the inning on nine pitches, recording two strikeouts, and not allowing a base runner. Storen has been inconsistent, too, which Davey Johnson has lamented about the back end of his bullpen. Hopefully, this is the final step in the right direction for Storen.

The Washington Nationals (13-12) were swept by the Atlanta Braves (15-9) the last time the two teams met, but that didn’t shake their confidence in their ability to win the coming rematch at Turner Field in Atlanta.

The Nationals played probably the worst they had all season in the last series. The offense mustered only 16 hits to the Braves’ 29, the pitching gave up 18 runs to the Braves’ five, and the defense committed four costly errors. However, the Nationals have been playing much more like a winning team in their more recent games, which makes Jordan Zimmermann, who will pitch the third game of the four-game set, convinced that this series will not resemble the previous one.

“We didn't play very well that series,” Zimmermann said, according to MLB.com. “We feel we are playing pretty good ball right now. We'll go down there and try to win as many ballgames as we can and win the series down there. We can try to sweep them at their place and send a message that we are a lot better than we showed [at Nationals Park]."

Even before the Nationals’ fortunes began changing, second baseman Danny Espinosa believed in his team’s ability to beat the Braves and send that message.

"I still don't think that they are the better than us,” Espinosa said at the conclusion of the April 14 game, according to MLB.com. "They are hot right now. … It doesn't last forever. So I'm not worried about it. I'm going to be real confident the next 16 games."

Espinosa has a reason to be confident, considering the momentum each team has going into the series. The Nationals just completed a series win over the Cincinnati Reds behind outstanding pitching performances, while the Braves have been on a downward slide since shortly after they played the Nationals, and were just swept by the Detroit Tigers.

The last time the Braves faced the Nationals, they cruised through Washington on a 10-game winning streak. But since the Kansas City Royals broke up the streak, wins have been harder to come by for Atlanta. They have gone 3-8 since then, and were shut out three times, in meetings against the Royals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Colorado Rockies and Tigers.

Though the Braves’ offense was hot out of the gate – they hit .259 with 25 home runs and won 12 of their first 13 games of the season – it has cooled down considerably in the last 11 games, as they have batted .223 with 11 home runs. They also struck out 114 times in that span, contributing to their NL-leading 224 strikeouts.

Nationals’ pitchers have struck out 178 batters so far this season, and if they bring their strikeout stuff to this series as they did to the Reds series, they have a good chance of making the statement they couldn’t deliver before, on the Braves home field.

The Nationals are now two and a half games behind the Braves in the standings, so if they were able to sweep the series they could take over first place for the first time since April 6.

Gattitude?

The social media team for the Braves has taken inspiration from the Nationals’ #Natitude campaign, by promoting this series with a photo that pairs the image of rookie catcher Evan Gattis with the words “Show some Gattitude.”

However, even Gattis hasn’t been showing his “Gattitude” recently. In his last eight games he is hitting .172/.226/.379 with nine strikeouts and one home run. Despite his power surge to start the season, it seems opposing pitchers are adjusting to him and he is now hitting .236/.291/.556 with six home runs on the season.

In the last series, Nationals pitchers struck him out twice and gave up only two hits to him in 11 at-bats (.182 average), but one of those hits was a home run off Stephen Strasburg. Gattis will face Strasburg again in the series opener, and it will be seen if Natitude or Gattitude prevails.

Bryce Harper and Justin Upton will face each other again starting on Monday, this time in Atlanta, and Harper hopes that his team has a much better result than the three-game sweep they were handed in DC just a couple weeks ago. Since then, the comparisons between the two players have become even more frequent as neither have shown signs of their performance slowing down. But when you look at all the numbers, who has been better? Let’s take a quantitative look at the numbers and try to come away with an unbiased comparison.

Upton has been simply mashing with 12 home runs early in the season. Harper has nine, which is nothing to scoff at, but Upton’s 12 blasts through 24 games is truly remarkable. Isolated power isn’t predictive of anything at this point, but it shows a small sample size snapshot of how much they’ve hit for extra bases in limited at-bats. League average ISO is about .145 over a full season, and Upton has a career .207 ISO to Harper’s .234 ISO, both well above average. Early this year, Upton sports a .477 ISO to Harper’s .410. Upton takes a small edge with wins above replacement, too. He leads all of baseball with 2.0 WAR, while Harper is third with 1.7 WAR.

As far as the most important stats go, Upton’s prominence ends there. In a host of other categories, Harper has better numbers, some far more impressive than others. Here’s a rundown of those stats.

Batting Average (AVG): Harper - .360; Upton - .307
On-Base Percentage (OBP): Harper - .444; Upton - .398
On-Base Plus Slugging (OPS): Harper - 1.200; Upton - 1.171
Strikeout Rate (K%): Harper - 15.2%; Upton - 25.2%
Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA): Harper - .503; Upton - .484
Weighted Runs Created Plus (wRC+): Harper - 231; Upton - 217

The two numbers that are worthy of the most attention in my eyes are OBP and K%, and the stats are closely related. Harper strikes out nearly half as many times as Upton does despite walking at about the same rate (13.1% for Harper, 12.6% for Upton). Harper just makes far more contact than Upton, as evidenced by a batting average more than 50-points higher combined with the much lower strikeout rate. It is worthwhile to point out Harper's better numbers in terms of wOBA and wRC+ as advanced stat examples, but they're not as impressive as his margins in OBP and strikeout rate.

To be clear, both of these guys are having remarkable starts to the season. The point of this article isn’t to show that Upton has some huge weakness; his numbers are impressive, but the comparisons speak for themselves. Harper blows Upton away in several key categories, including batting average, OBP, and K%.

Upton’s advantage in home runs is impressive this early in the year, but home runs are just one of many statistics. His advantage in isolated power is over such a small sample size it probably doesn’t tell us anything for either player. The fact that Upton’s amassed 2.0 WAR in 24 games is remarkable, but Harper isn’t far enough behind that you can say, in good conscience, that he’s blown him away.

It is so early in the season, that these numbers can, and will, fluctuate significantly over the coming weeks. For example, when I wrote the first draft of this post, Harper led Upton by more than 70-points in OPS. Now, he leads by just 29-points. This is an early season comparison for a snapshot in time, not predicting what may happen by September.

Both Bryce Harper and Justin Upton have posted phenomenal April numbers that trounce just about everyone in baseball, and they’ve had profound effects on their teams’ performances. But by the numbers, except for one or two categories, Harper’s early overall performance has been more impressive than Upton’s.

The Nationals had their first all around ugly game of the series against the Reds on Sunday afternoon. They still walked away from the game with a series win and a 4-3 season series win against the Reds. Ross Detwiler’s worst performance of the season was further exacerbated by poor defense and a lethargic offense in the 5-2 loss.

The Reds got to Detwiler early in the first inning. After striking out Shin-Soo Choo to start the game, Zack Cozart, Joey Votto, and Brandon Phillips logged back-to-back-to-back hits, a single, a double, and a two-RBI single, respectively. All of the contact was solid off of Detwiler’s fastball and sinker, which he threw exclusively, as the Reds got out to an early 2-0 lead. Detwiler did manage to strike out the side in the process.

The level of play got uglier in the third inning, but not before Anthony Rendon made a great play charging a slow roller to retire Corky Miller to start the inning. The pitcher, Tony Cingrani, shot a grounder down the left field line that bounced right off the third base bag, preventing Rendon for making another nice play.

Rendon had another opportunity on a Choo grounder, making a perfect throw to Danny Espinosa to start a double play, but Espinosa flat out dropped the ball and all runners were safe. After a Cozart walk to load the bases, Votto served up another hit, a single, driving in Cingrani from third. With the bases still loaded with one out, Brandon Phillips hit one hard at Adam LaRoche, who caught it smoothly and threw to Ian Desmond for a 3-6 double play to get Detwiler out of another jam.

In the fourth, the Reds played some small ball, starting with a Corky Miller single that ricochet off of Detwiler allowing him to reach base. He moved to third by Cingrani and Choo, and then Rendon made an incredible stop on a Cozart grounder, but his throw pulled LaRoche off the bag, allowing Miller to score. To end the inning, Denard Span made another great catch similar to the grab on Saturday, crashing into the visiting bullpen’s wall, once again against Joey Votto. That catch was the last out that Detwiler saw on the mound after five innings of disappointing work.

The Nats had their first offensive opportunity of the game in the fourth, and it couldn’t have gone more poorly. Span reached first after striking out due to a wild pitch, and Espinosa laced a double into the right field corner for a runners on second and third with no outs opportunity for Bryce Harper. Harper inexplicably tried to bunt for a hit and then swung at a pitch at his chest to strike out. Jayson Werth then walked to load the bases, and Desmond and LaRoche both struck out to end the inning. Because Span reached first on a strikeout, Cingrani recorded a rare four strikeout inning.

The Nats scored their first run of the game in the seventh inning set up by an Ian Desmond leadoff single. After another LaRoche strikeout, Rendon singled, and Kurt Suzuki doubled to the left field corner, scoring Desmond and narrowing the Reds lead to a 4-1 margin. With runners at second and third with just one out, neither Steve Lombardozzi nor Denard Span were able to get them home and the inning ended more quietly than it should have.

Henry Rodriguez entered in the eighth, and things got hairy quickly. He retired Xavier Paul, and proceeded to walk the next three batters to load the bases. Ryan Mattheus game in to clean up his mess, and did so admirably, only giving up one run on a sacrifice fly by Zack Cozart and expanding their lead to 5-1. Ultimately, Mattheus pitched brilliantly in one and two-thirds innings of relief.

In the eighth, the Nats tacked on another run after Harper walked and later scored on a Desmond double. Choo attempted to track the ball down in shallow left center, but it bounced off his glove and hit the turf, which helped the Nats narrow the margin to 5-2. That set up a save opportunity for Aroldis Chapman.

In perhaps his most impressive at bat in the majors, Rendon took Chapman to a full count and drew a leadoff walk. Unfortunately, Suzuki and Jhonatan Solano, who pinch hit in the pitcher’s spot, popped out, and Span struck out to end the game.

The Nats still won the series, and they have a huge series with the Braves in Atlanta coming up this week. They’ll try to get back some of their dignity after getting swept at home, which contributed to the beginning of their extended April slump. They’ll have their top three pitchers on the mound to help them do just that.

The Nats offense reignited on Saturday following a game where Jordan Zimmermann pitched so well that the offense never even had to light up to earn the win. The Nats ran Reds starter Mike Leake from the game early en route to a 6-3 victory, a series win, and an opportunity for a four-game sweep in Sunday’s day game.

Dan Haren helped his own cause early on the offensive side of things. The Nats hitters took Leake into a number of deep counts in the first two innings. Both Ian Desmond and Anthony Rendon walked in the second before Haren drove Desmond home with two outs on a flip of the bat that dropped over first baseman Joey Votto in right field giving the Nats an early 1-0 lead. Denard Span then hit a grounder right back through the middle, scoring Rendon and expanding the margin to 2-0.

The Nats bats wouldn’t let up in the third inning. Bryce Harper led off with a single on a first pitch curveball, and Jayson Werth moved him to second on an infield single. After an Adam LaRoche popout, Desmond drove in Harper. Then, Kurt Suzuki hit one toward Jack Hannahan at third who dove and made a nice stop, but he made a poor throw to second that sent the ball into right field scoring Werth on an error and giving the Nats a 4-0 lead and contributing to the end of Mike Leake’s start, who didn’t come back out in the fourth.

That didn’t matter to the Nats offense. Reds reliever Alfredo Simon didn’t start much better than Leake left things as Span singled to start things off, and Espinosa reached on a fielder’s choice avoiding a double play. Harper brought himself and Espinosa home with his ninth home run of the season, which crashed into the back of the Nats bullpen. The homer gave them a 6-1 lead. Later, in the sixth, Harper walked in his fourth plate appearance, helping him end today’s game with a remarkable 1.236 OPS.

The Reds started to get to get to Haren in the sixth with a leadoff home run by Shin-Soo Choo above the out of town scoreboard in right, and Zack Cozart singled. On a blast by Joey Votto to the Reds bullpen wall, Denard Span traveled at least 70-75 feet to make a leaping grab to rob Votto of at least a double. Haren got Phillips to ground into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning and Haren’s best start of the season.

The Nats bullpen certainly didn’t make it an easy final three innings. Zach Duke had some bad luck to start as he came on in relief of Haren. Jay Bruce tapped a slow grounder to Espinosa, who threw it over Adam LaRoche’s head and into the Nats dugout for his first error of the season. Duke further complicated things by walking Xavier Paul. He retired back-to-back hitters before being replaced by Tyler Clippard to face pinch hitter Todd Frazier.

Clippard didn’t make the inning easy on himself. He gave up a hit to Frazier through the left side of the infield, scoring Bruce, and making the score 6-3. He then walked Choo. Cozart then lined a ball to center, which was fading away from Span. That didn’t matter as he closed in on the ball with his impeccable acceleration to record the final out of a tense inning. Davey said he thought this catch was the more impressive of Span’s two great catches today saying, “I didn’t think he had a chance to catch that ball. He outran it.”

Drew Storen came in to pitch in the eighth, and he didn’t have the smoothest outing, either. After getting Votto to ground out to Desmond, drawing an expletive and thrown equipment from the Reds first baseman, Storen allowed back-to-back hits to Phillips and Bruce. On a hot shot, one-hopper to Ian Desmond, he, Espinosa, and LaRoche turned a flawless double play. Desmond had Phillips running in front of the play to make it more difficult, but it remarkably had no effect. The Nats averted another rough inning behind great defense.

Rafael Soriano decided he was going to lock down his seventh save of the season with some quick work in the ninth. He struck out Cesar Izturis, got Devin Mesoraco to line out hard to Desmond, and got Frazier to strike out to lock in the win for the Nats.

The Nats are 13-11 on the season now, and they’ll go for the four-game sweep on Sunday at 1:35 pm with LHP Ross Detwiler (1-1, 1.38 ERA) matching up against LHP Tony Cingrani (1-0, 2.25 ERA). It’s amazing how big a difference just a few days make. It took just three days for the panic to subside among the Nationals faithful.

Jordan Zimmermann was a superstar on Friday night. Throwing the second complete game of his season and his first career shutout, he propelled the Washington Nationals to a 1-0 victory over the Cincinnati Reds.

The Nationals’ pitching has been superb in the last two days, allowing only two hits in 18 innings, 17 of which were thrown by Zimmermann and Gio Gonzalez. The back-to-back one hitters from Gonzalez and Zimmermann were the first time the Reds have been held to one hit or less in consecutive games since 1900.

Zimmermann cruised through his nine innings, throwing 91 pitches and facing the minimum six times. He gave up just one hit – to Xavier Paul in the third inning – and one walk, with four strikeouts.

Manager Davey Johnson said Zimmermann’s outing was the best he had seen since becoming the Nationals’ manager in 2011, according to MLB.com.

Zimmermann’s impressive performance comes as little surprise, as he has been one of the Nationals’ most successful pitchers from the beginning of the season. His 0.86 WHIP and 2.67 ERA are best and second best among Nats pitchers, and four of five of his pitching appearances have been quality starts.

The strength of the Nationals’ pitching in the last two games showed a glimpse of how they were able to maintain success last year when their offense started out similarly slow. Though Nats hitters only managed to score one run off Homer Bailey – who pitched a similarly strong game, giving up five hits with six strikeouts in seven innings – Zimmermann made sure that was just enough to take the game and at least split the series.

Overall, the offense had six hits, seven strikeouts and left a man on base nine times. The one time they were able to bring him home came in the bottom of the fourth inning after Bryce Harper’s first triple of the year, which Jayson Werth followed with an RBI single.

Adam LaRoche continued to struggle at the plate, going 0-for-3 with a walk on Friday. He hasn’t had a hit in his last 13 at-bats with seven strikeouts. Though his bat showed some life in the series against the Chicago White Sox, LaRoche has always been a slow starter in April. He is batting .217 in the first month of the season through his career. Luckily, there are only a few more days left in April, and LaRoche’s career batting average ticks up to .246 in May.

The Nationals will go for the win of the four-game series on Saturday at 1:05, when Dan Haren looks for a shot at redemption against the Reds.

The Nationals had lost four straight games entering this Reds series, and the offense had been deplorable. The entire 25-man roster decided today was going to be the end of that, as they put a hurting on the Reds in all aspects of their play in the 8-1 victory.

Gio Gonzalez got things started on the right note, and he never let up for the rest of his outing. He was perfect through the first 11 batters of the game before giving up a home run to Joey Votto. It was an opposite field shot that barely made it over the wall.

From the first pitch, Gio was locked in with his fastball between 92-95 mph. He continued to attack hitters deep into his outing, throwing a lot of fastballs and working in breaking stuff. He didn’t have the best command of his curveball, but he was able to use it to change speeds and the hitter’s perspective to use his fastball effectively.

He finished the game with eight masterful innings under his belt in what was his best start of the season by far. He gave up just one hit on the Votto home run in the fourth, walked two batters, and struck out seven. It was the exact kind of start the Nats needed from their starter to break a rough stretch of games.

The Nats offense helped allow Gio to do that though, giving him a bit of a cushion early. In the second inning, Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa got back to back to get things started, and Espinosa drove Desmond in for the first run of the game. Denard Span later knocked in Espinosa to give the Nats a 2-0 lead early.

The offense really broke free the very next inning. Bryce Harper led off the third with a massive home run, his eighth of the year, to the grass in deep center field, giving the Nats a 3-0 lead, but they were nowhere near done in that inning. Jayson Werth singled, and on an Adam LaRoche tailor made double play ball, Werth got in the way of Joey Votto’s throw but was in the base line, so both he and LaRoche were safe on third and first, respectively. Desmond drove in Werth on a groundout, and then Espinosa showed up again, hitting a two-run blast into the Nats bullpen and giving them a 6-0 lead. 

In the sixth, Gio walked his first batter of the game, Devin Mesoraco, which is a great improvement for him from his previous starts. Bronson Arroyo popped up a bunt and was unable to move the runner over. Steve Lombardozzi made a couple nice picks at third to get two of the three outs in the inning, and Gio got around the leadoff walk without trouble.

The Nats weren’t quite done pouring on the runs, though. In the eighth, Desmond got picked off of first base, even though he clearly got back safely, but then Kurt Suzuki walked, and Roger Bernadina, pinch hitting for Gio Gonzalez, recorded his first his of the season. Span then drove them both in with a triple to the centerfield wall over Shin-Soo Choo’s head, giving the Nats an 8-1 lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.

This game was exactly what the doctor ordered after a terrible few games for the offense. With the eight run showing, they scored more runs than they have in the last four games combined, and it tied for second their best offensive production of the season. It also tied for the best run differential (+7) of any game this season. They have three more games to play against this very good Reds team at home, and they’ve moved back to .500 on the season at 11-11.

After being swept in the previous series to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Washington Nationals (10-11) will continue their home stand by facing another tough NL Central opponent, the Cincinnati Reds (13-9).

Being swept by the Cardinals dropped the Nationals’ record below .500 for the first time since 2011, when they finished the season 80-81. In order to bring their record up, the Nats will look to reverse their fortunes against the Reds in this series, after losing the last match-up 1-2 in Cincinnati.

Both Nationals’ hitting and pitching fell flat in the last series, as they were outscored 27-10, highlighted by a 15-0 blowout in which the Nats pitching staff gave up six home runs. But the Nats will try to capitalize on home-field advantage during this series in a less homer-friendly park. They are 6-6 at Nationals Park, while the Reds are just 1-5 on the road.

Offensive Woes

It’s no secret that the Nationals' offense has been struggling lately. In the last six games, they have combined to hit just .188 and have scored only 12 runs.

Manager Davey Johnson is assured that his Nats are putting in the effort; they just still have not found their rhythm.

"All of them are so motivated and driven to be so good, it's kind of hard for me to berate them or get on them because I know they're grinding," Johnson said, according to MLB.com. "They come to play. We've just to ride out the rough times. Last year we started … really slow offensively…but the pitching was our mainstay early on, kept us in ballgames. It's showing little signs of life coming around, so now we just need to wait on the offense. It's tough waiting."

With the pitching also struggling, it has been harder for the Nationals to win games this year than it was last year. Despite scoring only 74 runs and hitting .266/.304/.328 in April 2012, the pitching staff struck out 195 batters and posted a 2.33 ERA, the best in the majors, to give them a 14-8 record that month. This season, the offense has scored 76 runs and is batting .253/.299/.402, and the pitching staff has a 3.99 ERA, 10^th in the majors.

Johnson is going to try to mix up the lineup to see if that helps get some offense going, while he waits for the pitching to start performing to its potential also.

Reds Pitching

The Nats’ offense is going to have to try to start succeeding again against a very successful Reds pitching staff. The Reds’ starters have had quality starts in nine of their last ten outings, and haven’t allowed more than two runs per game in the same period. This recent string of success has given them the fourth-lowest ERA (2.99) for starting pitchers in the majors.

"I'm impressed by it," Reds manager Dusty Baker said, according to MLB.com. "It means they're throwing a lot of pitches, though. I'm not impressed that we've had an equal amount of strikeouts on our side. That's unimpressive."

The Nationals pitchers, who have struck out 153 batters, ninth in the National League, will have to try to best the Reds pitchers, who have struck out an NL-best 201 hitters, though their offense has struck out an NL-worst 187 times.

Checking In With Rendon

Third baseman Anthony Rendon, who was brought up to replace Ryan Zimmerman when he went on the DL, has failed to provide an offensive spark. He hit .375 with four home runs in Spring Training, and finished the spring with a higher on base plus slugging percentage (1.287) than Bryce Harper, though he had 12 fewer at-bats. However, he has not has the same level of success in the bigs, with only two hits and five strikeouts in 15 at-bats through his first four major league games.

In The Zone

Ross Detwiler (SP). Each of his four appearances this year has been a quality start, and he continues to have the lowest ERA of any pitcher on the Nationals pitching staff.

Who’s Hot?

Shin-Soo Choo (CF) .524 AVG, .688 OBP, .762 SLG, 8 BB, 1 3B (last six games)

Joey Votto (1B) .300 AVG, .389 OBP, .500 SLG, 2 HR, 5 RBI (last seven games)

Who’s Not?

Brandon Phillips (2B) .214 AVG, .324 OBP, .250 SLG, 0 HR, 6 SO, (last seven games)

Zack Cozart (SS) .222 AVG, .276 OBP, .370 SLG, 1 HR, 3 SO (last six games)

Probable Starters

4/25, Gio Gonzalez (1-1, 5.85 ERA, .240 BAA, 20 SO) vs. Bronson Arroyo (2-1, 3.54 ERA, .231 BAA, 16 SO)

4/26, Jordan Zimmermann (3-1, 2.67 ERA, .230 BAA, 15 SO) vs. Homer Bailey (1-1, 3.24 ERA, .220 BAA, 26 SO)

4/27, Dan Haren (1-3, 7.36 ERA, .376 BAA, 15 SO) vs. Mike Leake (1-0, 3.81 ERA, .276 BAA, 18 SO)

4/28, Ross Detwiler (1-1, 1.38 ERA, .258 BAA, 13 SO) vs. Tony Cingrani (1-0, 2.25 ERA, .233 BAA, 17 SO)