JUNKIES: Mike Rizzo praises Luis Garcia, Trevor Williams' strong starts for surging Nats

For the first time since July 2021, the Nationals are above .500!

Yes, for real: since they were 40-39 entering play on July 2, 2021, Washington has been at or below .500 at the end of every day of the last nearly three seasons – but the streak is over, and GM Mike Rizzo

“It’s always good to play productive, clean baseball like last night,” 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. “The record is the record, but it's always good to beat a good team and compete against the best. It was a fun game last night and I think it'll be another good one tonight.”

And yeah, Rizzo can believe Davey Martinez didn’t know any of that record minutia.

“I think that he probably knows the vicinity of where we're at, but standings and stuff like that at this time of year is kind of meaningless,” Rizzo said. “I think the focus is really on preparing to play a good game tonight and go 1-0. When I look back, I knew we were at .500 then above .500 because, it feels good to be there, but where we are on May 8th, it really doesn't matter. It’s just trying to chip away and play a good game tonight, get some momentum, and figure out roles for the players and niches for the guys. I think that you're seeing that come together at this early stage of the season.”

Rizzo praised the pitching last week, but this week, he had to give some of the success dap to Luis Garcia, who had seemingly done everything to lose his job short of actually losing it coming into this season, but is now hitting .330 with an .880 OPS, a team high-tying 19 RBI and eight doubles, seven of the Nats’ 61 steals (in seven attempts), and a Nats-high 159 OPS+.

“Luis put a lot of work in this off season. We had our exit meetings with him and kind of asked him, what do you wanna be in your career? Do you don't wanna be a four or five-year up-and-down player or a 10-12 year big leaguer?” Rizzo said. “We knew his career could go in two different ways, and I think he really took that to heart and worked out hard and had a good off-season.
He's in terrific shape, he's moving better, running faster…he always had the hands to hit and really be a good big league hitter, and the work he's put in with Darnell (Coles) has been remarkable. It's really kind of refreshing to see these guys kind of growing together and really bonding and becoming good teammates and good friends together; Luis’ transformation has been subtle, but it's been a work in progress for a couple of years, and I think that he's really focused in more defensively and on the base paths, and taking his at-bats and competing in the batter's box much better.”

But, of course, can’t ignore the hurlers, so this week it was time to shine on Trevor Williams, who is 4-0 and has the best ERA of the rotation at 1.96 in his seven starts.

“Trevor's had success in the past; he started with the Pirates and then went to the Mets and kind of got a really good role for himself as that as that middle reliever where he could go multiple innings – but he featured good stuff and when we signed him as a starting pitcher, we knew there were gonna be growing pains because he hadn’t started consistently in a few years,” Rizzo said. “Last year we stretched him out and he did a nice job for us, kind of faded at the end there but kept it together, and really took that into the off-season. He worked with Jim Hickey and our analytics department extensively over the off-season, trying to change some of his pitch shapes and adding more of a slurvy sweeper-type of pitch along with his curveball and change-up. So I think that the mentality of going out and maximizing pitch load and going after hitters, throwing strikes and being aggressive, pitching to all four quadrants with four pitches has paid off.”

Take a listen to Rizzo’s entire segment above, which also touches on the continued speed surge on the bases (including from some unexpected sources), the crowd for O’s/Nats, and more!