If you follow any of this, Josh started off this season (April and May) with a 1.60 ERA and at least a strikeout per inning pitched. I posted about this and about 2 weeks before the Nats made a couple bullpen moves, the wheels fell off the cart to Josh. His June was a statistical disaster... finishing up with a three or four run 1/3 of an inning stint on June 25th.

Well, I fear saying anything, but the ship was righted since 6/28 as he has thrown about 12.2 innings, if I remember correctly giving up 6 hits and 3 walks. Over this span, he is running an ERA of 0.00. His season ERA has dropped back down to 2.80. His strikeout ratio is still near one per inning, but his walks are really down. his WHIP is below 1. That's nine really good outings, the last two were 2 inning stints where he gave up a total of two hits.

I am wondering, with the troubles with middle relief on the Nats, do you think he will get the call? As a warning, I haven't seen anything but the stats, but even a couple of holds for the Nats would be big....

On other fronts, Bobby Lucas has a 0.68 ERA in about 7 appearances. He is striking out 1.25 batters per inning and may survive his rookie league experience to throw another year.

Eric Cantrell is back pitching at Burlington in the App Rookie League. The batters that face him seem to either strikeout or get hits.

Wilkie's name doesn't really seem to come up on the Nats radar screen when they talk about prospects in their organization. Not sure they see him as having stuff at the ML level, despite his stats. I suppose if Clippard and/or Storen get moved he could get the call for his shot but I'm just not optimistic that his number will be the one dialed. They'll muddle through with Coffey and Rodriguez and what they have now. Hope I'm wrong and Josh gets his shot though I'm still reeling from having to defend Mike O'Connor's pedigree to my fellow Nats season ticket holders.

I think that the Nationals will be making a number of moves on their pitching roster this year still.

The top young pitcher on the staff now - Jordan Zimmerman - is on a pitch count in his first year back from Tommy John surgery and will likely be shut down after another 10 or so starts.

Stephen Strasburg could still come up at the end of the year if his recovery continues.

Brad Peacock - seen as their to minor league prospect could very well join the roster this year.

The Nationals paid serious money to sign Chien-Ming Wang who got hurt and is now pitching well in his rehab and he will likely be called up too - or the Nationals would have paid for nothing.

The most likely guys to be traded are Jason Marquis, Livan Hernandez, and Tyler Clippard.

Most scouting services don't have Wilkie even in the top ten pitching prospects for the Nationals - but who knows.

Thinker, I'm afraid you're right about who they might unload, but I think it'd mostly be a mistake.  I think they should try something radical, like trying to win games the rest of the season and not wreck more young arms while doing it.  The only way to do that is keep Clippard, who's the only pitcher they have who can come in before the 9th to stop rallies, and they're paying him bupkis, and Marquis.  I'd probably keep Livan around, too, even though I think he's mostly lost it, but he has a rubber arm and I don't think too many teams can develop more than three young pitchers at a time.  I realize that not too many sports execs think this way, but I think it's worth the extra money for a couple of months to keep from damaging the prospects.  We've already seen that Lannan is fragile.  Who else is there between them and a freefall if as Thinker logically posits, you shut down Zimmermann?  Losing is habitual.  Ask the "Wizards."   They'd be crazy enough to rush Strasburg back, too, just for a couple of sellouts, whether he's ready or not. 

Rizzo has shown no tendency at all to rush young prospects through the system other than Cuban Yunesky Maya who was signed to a big free agent contract and may never quite pan out as hoped. No worries that Strasburg will be accelerated before he's ready for box office payoff. Best example is Jordan Zimmerman whose late summer activation and performance last year coming off the same Tommy John surgery provided reassuring confidence that has served him well this year.

It would be silly not to trade Marquis if any team offers something decent.  There's not a lot of difference between watching a 76-win team and 78-win team.  Even if they wanted him back next year, there's every chance to sign him since he probably won't even be a Type B free agent. Clippard will probably never have more value than he does now, but they've really used him a lot, and you have to wonder how long he can remain effecive. Still, I doubt a team will give the Nats what he's worth, because some teams ,like San Diego or Baltimore, are guys just as good. Coffey seems really expendable, but that's been true from the beginning of the year, kind of like Ankiel or Stairs. Those guys are taking at-bats from players you actually want to see develop, at least Coffey has been ok in the role while pitchers are gaining a little upper level experience and regaining arm strength after injuries. After Wang gets hammered for a few starts, we'll be back in fifth place.

Sorry, that post was a mess. I hope they give Wilkie a chance in September, but O'Connor had a big advantage pitching lefthanded.

Chester, I think the hole in your logic is the potential difference in the win total.  If you let Marquis go, it moves up the entire rotation and stresses out the developing pitchers including the relievers.  Even if he only gives you 6 innings per outing, a bad fifth starter who wouldn't otherwise be in the rotation gives you 2-3 innings, which destroys the bullpen, and without Marquis (and presumably Livan), the pressure increases on Lannan and Zimmermann to go longer.  So it creates a freefall atmosphere.  Some teams do the July firesale and just bump along at the same pace the rest of the season.  A lot go from a couple games under .500 to 20 games under .500 in a seeming heartbeat. 
 

The other odd thing is, there's 60 games left, their 2 biggest hitters haven't hit, and people are talking about throwing in the towel.  It's academic for me because I go to 2-3 games a year, usually when someone has an extra.  The real supporters are already numb to "we're a loser and we have to do an annual fire sale."   Why aren't people demanding that Rizzo be fired if Werth doesn't hit 15-20 homers in the remaining games?   Unlike other sports, baseball is fun to go to if you don't have to be at work by 8:30 or 9 the next day and you don't really care who wins, so I can see buying a ticket package if you just love baseball, but it only took a few years for the inevitable "we can't win" mentality to soak in here, apparently.   If management knows people don't care about winning, they act accordingly.

I think there'd be six guys in the rotation now, if Gorzelanny wasn't a mess. They will give Wang a few starts to see if they get anything for the dough they threw at him. There'd be no great need for an innings eater if either guy does his job every fifth day. Even so, Detwiler could take those starts and probably deserves to have them anyway over a guy you won't necessarily have next year like Marquis.  He'll be out of options. Also there's Milone in AAA right now with a 10/118 BB/K ratio who might be better than Marquis right now. Why not give him a chance to see if his sinker plays against MLB lineups, and not have to worry about  an innings cap in a September call up? By September too, they will probably want to give Strasburg a few starts since the rehab seems to be patterned similarly to Zimmmermann's last year. Keeping Marquis right now, only makes sense if the other teams see him as I do, an average guy who's not worth giving up as much as Rizzo wants in a trade. Then sure, you are a better team, but don't act like trading Marquis is a fire sale. That's getting rid of a sport jacket that you are getting a little too fat to wear.

Bobby Lucas is doing fairly well in the Florida Rookie League. His last outing was 3 innings and he did give up a run on a couple of hits and a walk. His K's are at about 1.3 per inning.

Wilkie, meanwhile has his post-Allstar break WHIP at about 0.25 .... He is getting 1 to 2 innings per outing. Enough Triple-A teams are getting a look at him that something may happen. Those numbers really stand out. Who knows if the Nats will do anything, but they may decide to use him as bait. If you look at the Nats' minor league system, you see very few position players who are rising stars. It seems that they are strong(-er) up the middle, but that's not saying much.

Ah .... no. Wheel off cart and rolling away.

Bad weekend against Mud Hens