On Tuesday night, Stephen Strasburg earned his 100th win in a Nationals uniform. But what happened after he left the game was arguably just as impressive.
The Nationals bullpen, statistically the worst in baseball for weeks, pitched four scoreless innings to help Washingon claim a 9-5 victory over the White Sox. As the Nats have heated up as a team, winning eight of their last 10 games, so have the relievers.
Nationals bullpen over the last 15 1/3 IP: 1 R, 9 H, 3 BB, 13 K. They've lowered their ERA from 7.23 to 6.66.
— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) June 5, 2019"I think our bullpen is starting to pitch and feel a little bit more comfortable," Nats general manager Mike Rizzo said during his weekly appearance on The Sports Junkies Wednesday, presented by Burke & Herbert Bank. "Pitch a little bit like we expected them to pitch."
"Our starters have been taxed and asked to go the extra mile. They have, and it's good to see other portions of the roster pick them up when they have to like last night."
Rizzo pointed to the team getting healthy as a key factor in this recent hot streak.
"When you look at the front portion of our season, we had a rash of injuries," he said. "Whenever you lose your core group — 2, 3, 4, 5 hitters, your best two bench guys, two or three relievers that you're counting on, two starters at one time — it just throws everything out of whack."
"We were running guys out there that the general public didn't even know about. But we grinded through, we persevered and got ourselves a little bit healthier."
"The one constant between all this was our rotation. They give us a chance to win each and every day."
The Nats are finally starting to string some wins together and claw their way back into the playoff conversation. But instead of focusing on that, Rizzo just wants his team to keep doing what it's doing.
"I just like the fact that we're playing good baseball, solid baseball," Rizzo told the Junkies. "We can only worry about us. We're gonna take it game by game ... inning by inning, and that's really the only way you can take it."
"We just need to continue the momentum through today's game and then get on the plane and try and play good baseball on the road."
Every week, all baseball season, if any Washington player hits for the cycle during a Wednesday game, one lucky fan wins a cool $100K. Click here to enter the Burke & Herbert "Bank On The Cycle" contest!
