Opening Day Win at Wrigley

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And the pitch swung on in highly air to deep left field.

This is half going back in the warning track at the wall and it is gone.

Goodbye. Five rules deep toward the left field corner into a ferocious wind.

Bang Zoom goes Joey Wimmer with the first nationals home run of the year.

Three one. So we had a fly ball right field to wind pushing it toward the corner,

giving Chase a shot. This went over his head and gone.

Oh my goodness, Jacob Young is over to the opposite field into the basket.

A wind blown to run homer for Jacob Young and the nationals lead it seven to two.

Wept the rivers swinging a high fly ball right field deep.

Back goes Conforter at the wall looking up and it is gone. Goodbye.

The third home run of the day for the nationals,

hops around first went back to touch.

Looking you might have missed the bag.

Bang Zoom goes Brady Houses, he circles the bases with an opening day to run home run here

in the top of the ninth inning. And the nationals poured it on late.

They have hit double digits at Rigley Field.

It's now the nationals 10 of the Cubs for.

And welcome to NachChant, along with Washington Nationals,

insider mark, soccerman of gnatsjournal.com.

I'm Al Galdi, host of the Al Galdi podcast.

Mark is at Rigley Field where the gnats scored their most runs in an opening day game

since the franchise moved to Washington, D.C.

in the 2004-2005 off season. Not a bad way to begin.

The 22nd regular season of the gnats being in D.C.,

a 10-4 win at the Chicago Cubs on Thursday in game one of a three game series.

Welcome to season number six of the gnatschat podcast,

the only gnats podcast for which there is a new episode for the morning

after every gnats regular season.

Game day, Mark has covered the team since it came to D.C.

I've been doing sports talk in D.C. for nearly 25 years.

It is great to have you with us.

As is the opening day tradition on the gnatschat podcast,

this installment of the show brought to us by the great Mason Calpis,

the top legal recruiter in Washington, D.C.

Mason has been with us since our first season.

You can reach him at 202-486-3535.

Our deepest sympathies to those of you who had some issues

when it came to watching this game on Thursday.

The phrase Verizon Files Channel 579

became ingrained in the minds of more than a few gnats fans.

In fact, if you do a search on ex-nationals,

Verizon Files Channel 579,

a whole lot of things end up popping up.

I don't know, you know, sometimes Tim Shovers struggles

or at least wrestles with what to call episodes of this podcast,

like what to use as the title.

Maybe the title of this pod,

Tim should be Verizon Files Channel 579.

I don't know.

Anyway, hopefully you did get to watch the game.

And, Mark, this was a fun opening day.

We all get it.

The gnats are not expected to have a good season.

But, you know, for a game number one for this team

with this new process fueled by analytics and sports science,

the team led by a new president of baseball operations

in Poltabonia, new general manager

and Ani Kalambia, new manager and Blake Butera.

So far, so good.

Nice to say, want to know.

You know, I could argue this is the most encouraging

uplifting opening day this team has had.

Since the last time they opened that Riggly Field way back in 2012,

that was a new look nationals team

that had high expectations.

They won an opening day and obviously went on to win 98 games

and make the playoffs for the first time.

I'm not saying this season's going to come anywhere close to that,

but in terms of just the encouraging nature of it,

and they won the game, yes,

but it's also the way they wanted with some unexpected power,

with contributions up and down the lineup

and up and down the pitching staff.

There were so many guys who had a role in this win.

This is in their perfect vision, Blake Butera and Poltabonia.

This is the kind of win that they are hoping to see a lot more of.

It's not just about a couple of the big name guys.

It's about everybody.

It's about putting together a lineup that was fully based

on the matchups and seeing it come through the way that it did.

It's about piecing together their bullpen again,

picking the right guys for the right spots

and seeing that group come through.

I don't know this is exactly how they would have scripted it to go,

but it had to be pretty close to what they could have

foreseen or envisioned.

This one being like,

and I do feel terrible for anyone who wasn't able to watch

for technical difficulties or whatever the reasons might be

because this was a fun game.

I hope there are a lot more of them this season.

I hope this was not the high point of the entire 2026 season,

but it was like in your dream world,

this is about as good of a scenario as you could have drawn up for game one.

Crazy game two.

A Nats Outfielder with the initials JW was a big time offensive producer.

That outfielder was not James Wood.

That outfielder was Joey Weemer.

Go figure.

But yeah, so with the lineup, right?

So we get it.

New process for the Nats.

We are anticipating seeing a ton of different lineups over the course

of the 162 and sure enough.

The Nats on Thursday had multiple notable items with the lineup.

Andres Chaparo was the starting first baseman and number two batter.

The aforementioned Joey Weemer was the Nats starting right.

Fielder and number five batter.

He batted ahead of CJ Abrams,

who was the Nats starting shortstop.

And number six batter.

And oh, by the way, the Nats were facing a good pitcher

in the cups opening day starter lefty Matthew Boyd.

Matthew Boyd, last regular season 31 starts.

He already a 321.

This guy's a good pitcher.

He's a veteran pitcher.

And the Nats got to him in this game.

Boyd allowed six runs in three and two thirds innings.

It was not he had seven strikeouts versus one walk.

But the Nats ended up ripping them.

And the overall offensive production.

I mean, how do you complain about this?

10 runs.

11 hits, which were three homers.

A double and seven singles.

The Nats worked two walks into hit by pitch.

The Nats went three for six with runners in scoring position.

And the Nats did what they did offensively.

Despite a rough game for James Wood.

He was the Nats starting left fielder and number one batter.

He went over five with four strikeouts.

But even with that, if you look at the stat cast data for this game,

so many impressive exit velos for the Nats in this game,

they were hitting balls hard.

They got good offensive results.

And again, they did this with James Wood

having a really rough game offensively.

Yeah, I think the two themes of this game from an offensive standpoint

is number one, getting contributions from lots of different guys.

And you saw that where you could get away with James Wood having

what's admit, a very August and September 2025,

James Wood kind of game at the plate.

You hope that doesn't continue.

We'll ignore that for today because there are way more interesting things to talk about.

So number one, getting the contributions from all the others.

The other, I think, keep point to it all when they made contact.

And they didn't make contact a lot in those first three hitings.

Seven of their first 10 batters struck out.

But when they did make contact against Boyd, it was loud contact.

You had two drives to the warning track in the first two innings.

One by Andres Deparro, one by Day the Lyle.

On any other day, those are home runs.

The wind at Riggly was in full force for this game.

This was a bizarre, maybe classic Chicago weather day.

When we all got to the ballpark in the morning,

it was warm, it was muggy, it was in the 60s.

The wind was blowing out.

And right around 10 o'clock, 1030, it completely flipped.

And it dropped about 15 degrees.

And the wind started howling in from left field.

And you saw what that did to fly balls.

And so when I saw those two early drives get knocked down by the wind,

I thought, nobody's going to hit one out today.

Well, then what happened?

Joey Weemer of all people hit one right through the teeth of the wind

in the left field.

And then Jacob Young and Brady House go the opposite way.

You had all kinds of other really good quality contacts.

So yes, they swung and missed a lot.

The first time through, when they did make contact,

it was really good solid contact.

And not just one or two guys, a lot of guys.

Yeah, I mean, you know, you can look at the exit

Velo's and it's one triple digit exit Velo

after another.

The Brady House homer 110.8, the CJA from single 110.8.

The Joey Weemer homer 110.5, Brady House's single 106.7.

And Andre's Chipotle fly out.

You just brought it up 105.4, the Chipotle double 103.8.

The Jacob Young homer 101.9, a Dalin Lyle single 100.3.

Joey Weemer single 100.

Dalin Lyle's line out 98.4 on and on.

We can go.

It's crazy too when you look at who hit the homers.

I mean, Joey Weemer and Jacob Young, right?

I mean, if I said to you, the first two Nats outfielders

to Homer this season will be Joey Weemer and Jacob Young,

like what who?

And yet that's exactly what happened.

Joey Weemer, who is this guy?

And that's this past January 5th claimed Weemer off waivers

from the San Francisco Giants.

He in this game as the starting right fielder

and number five batter three for three

with a solo homer two singles and a walk.

He also got credited with an outfield assist.

The homer was great.

A one run Nats second, a one out solo shot

to left field for one nothing Nats lead.

The outfield assist came to end the Cubs two run third.

He had a Pete Crow Armstrong two out first pitch RBI single

in the right through home to catcher.

Kate Bitt Ruiz and Ruiz did a really good job here,

fired the ball to third baseman Brady House

to tag Alex Breggman for the third out.

Jacob Young comes into this game with just five homers.

Over a thousand six career MLB regular season played appearances

but he is the Nats starting center fielder and number nine batter.

One for four with a two run homer.

Young in the Nats a six run fourth,

a two out opposite field two run shot to right

for a seven two Nats lead.

And Brady House who had a great exhibition season

so good to see this.

He is the Nats starting third baseman and number three batter.

Two for five with a two run homer and a single

did commit a throwing error,

but House in a Nats two run ninth,

a two out first pitch two run opposite field homer

to right for a 10 four Nats lead.

He also had a very good defensive play

but of the first a diving catch on a five three ground out

by Alex Breggman for the first out.

But you know, the Nats win by six,

the two run homer by House,

you almost felt like was needed.

It almost felt like two needed insurance runs

because you weren't quite sure what to expect

as this game went on.

It turned out that the ball pen was good

but in the moment, you know,

you weren't sure how many runs you would need.

And so that House homer actually felt like was important

or at least it felt important at the time.

Right, it felt there like they were gonna have to hope

that those early runs held up the rest of the game.

Now they didn't need it as you said

but once they got that last one

when House hit that ball out,

the fans who were still here

and a lot of them had already left.

I'm sure the weather played a factor in that

but a lot of them had already left.

Those who were still here,

they immediately got up and walked out

as soon as that went out.

That was the final dagger for sure.

Let's remember,

this was one of the least productive offenses

in baseball throughout spring training.

Really did not show anything.

So how did they flip the switch here

on opening day to have that kind of performance?

And I think something to consider here

is number one,

they knew for a while

who they were gonna be facing, Matthew Boyd.

They had time to prep for him.

That's not just the players

but the coaching staff, the front office, everybody.

I think they had a real game plan put together

for how to face him.

That included who was in the lineup

and where they were hitting.

They had worked on this lineup for a while.

When people saw it in the morning

like what are they doing?

Understood, Parles, your number two hitter.

Joey Wiemers, your number five hitter.

There was a method to the madness.

You're gonna see a lot of this kind of stuff.

They put a lot of work into their scouting

and their game planning for this.

And they got to go out and face this guy

and you saw it by facing him into the fourth inning

and getting a second look at him.

They had some really good at bats against him.

Now, you had weeks to prepare for this one game.

It's not gonna be the same moving forward.

You got two days into game two

and then you're basically playing every day after that.

Can they get enough prep in

and can they implement all that on a day-to-day basis?

It's gonna be fascinating to see.

I don't want to take anything away from the players

who got the job done in this game,

but I think we probably should acknowledge

that some of the credit here is gonna go

to this new process they have

and the new people in charge who put together

a very good game plan for how to face this particular pitcher

and then they put it in action

and the guys delivered when they were asked to.

Yeah, this was what you call an organizational win.

And oh, by the way, you out-processed a team

known for process in the Cubs.

I mean, the Cubs are known as a really smart team

and you dare I say out-smarted the Cubs,

out-saper-metric the Cubs, at least on one day

and that's got the better

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Three balls, two strikes.

We'll do it again.

Lord Ready, kick in the pitch.

Swain and ground ball up the middle behind second.

Feel it by Nunez to second for one,

to first for two.

And the ending is over.

Brad Lord dials up the double play

with the ground ball right over the second base back

to the nationals top defender,

Naseem Nunez, who turned it with room to spare.

The offense of big time positive and the bullpen

ended up being a big time positive in this game.

The Nance bullpen on paper is the exact opposite

of imposing, okay?

I don't know what word you want to use.

We're being nice on this installment of the podcast

because Thursday was such a fun day,

but like you go through name by name

in terms of Nats relievers on the regular season

opening 26 man roster.

Like you're like, wow, this could be rough

in terms of what we get from Nats relief pitching this season.

And maybe what we get will be rough.

But on this day, Nats relievers found a way to come through.

Now things did get rocky at times.

That is true, but ultimately four Nats relievers

combined to allow one run in five and a third innings.

PJ Poulin, he faced five batters

and got three outs came into the game

in the bottom of the fourth with a runner on third,

two outs and the Nats up seven three.

And he got the Cubs number nine batter match shot

to ground out on eight pitches for the third out.

Brad Lord allowed one run in two into third innings

so a lengthy outing for him.

He came into the game,

bottom of the fifth runners on first and second,

two outs, Nats up seven three.

He got the Cubs number five batter,

Nico Horner to ground into a fielders choice for the third out.

Also Lord with runners on first and second,

went out and the Nats up eight four

and the bottom of the seventh,

induced a four three full count double play off the bat of

Nico Horner as second baseman,

Natsim Nunez made a really nice play.

And the run that Lord allowed came out a bunch,

came out a one out RBI,

bunch single by Pete Crow Armstrong

and a Cubs one run seven.

We had the adventures of Clayton Beater.

He tossed a scoreless and hitless bottom of the eighth.

I'm still not sure how.

He issued two walks.

He issued a wild pitch.

He was late to cover first on a ground out,

but he tossed a scoreless and hitless bottom of the eighth inning.

Also, he threw as many balls as he threw strikes.

24 pitches, 12 strikes, 12 balls.

But again, he tossed a scoreless

and hitless bottom of the eighth.

And a salute to CNL Perez,

a perfect bottom of the ninth

with two swinging strikeouts,

despite facing the Cubs numbers two through four batters

and Alex Bergman, Ian Hap and Pete Crow Armstrong.

CNL Perez, the former Orioles reliever.

He has not had a good season since 2022,

but when he has been good, he has been quite good.

And this was some appearance by Perez in this game

facing the meat of the Cubs order,

setting them down one, two, three,

two swinging strikeouts,

and ultimately the Nance Bullpen comes through.

Am I remembering right that you and I,

both in our season predictions that I did on National.com,

had him leading the team in saves.

We were the only two from the whole group to do that.

We were thinking along the same lines.

I really like this guy.

He looked impressive in spring training.

He's a new man.

He has worked a lot on reconfiguring his repertoire,

going back to the fastball that he had when he was good

with the Orioles instead of trying to be a ground ball pitcher,

being more of a forcing fastball, go right at him.

The stuff has been excellent.

I know it wasn't a safe situation

because they were up by six runs,

but that kind of telegraphed maybe

what Blake Butera is thinking in that

if they have a lead late in the game

and there are big lefties coming up,

I think he's gonna be the guy on the mound for that one.

I really think the bullpen deserves a ton of credit

for this game.

We'll get to Kate Cavalli and I thought it was a good outing

by him, all things considered.

But Butera had to ask his bullpen to give him 16 outs

in this game on opening day

and they really came through.

Yes, they got into some jams,

but for the most part, they were able to get out of them.

I think Brad Lord, this was a perfect example

of what he can do for you as a reliever.

I know people were saying,

you know, maybe he should be one of their five starters

and I get that, he may be better,

probably is better than one or two of their starters.

But there's some real value in having him do

what he did in this game.

It's a long reliever,

but you tend to think of long relievers like the sloppy guy

who, you know, when the starter gets knocked out early,

you're just picking up innings

and just trying to get the game over with.

No, you can deploy a guy like this in a meaningful game

and get two and a third innings out of him.

He pitches out of a jam and the fifth inning,

it wasn't of his making, it was PJ Pullman,

he comes in and gets the final out of that inning.

Then he comes back and pitches a sixth

and the seventh gets a big double play grounder

to end the seventh to have a guy with his ability

and adaptability who can give you two and a third innings

and be the bridge from whoever you're using earlier on

to the back end guys.

That's a really valuable guy to have in your bullpen

and I will be interested to see how they use him this season,

but that to me was an example of what Brad Lord

can do for you and how not making the rotation

is not necessarily a bad thing

and it can actually be a sign that they do value him

because what he's doing for you there in that role

is arguably maybe even more valuable

than being your number five starter.

And I tend to think it's pretty safe to say

that Brad Lord will be making at least some starts here this season,

maybe even a whole lot of starts before all is said and done,

but you know, we have lamented the Nats lacking a legitimate

long man in recent years

and maybe they do finally have that guy in Brad Lord.

So the bullpen comes through and then there's Kate Cavali.

So obviously, you know, Cavali,

you look at him a lot of high expectations of him being healthy

of him having this great exhibition season

of him being declared the opening day starter

to a nice press conference at Nationals Park earlier this week.

He ends up lasting for just three and two thirds innings,

three runs, two earned in three and two thirds innings.

Now, you know, you look at that and it's a disappointing outing.

I mean, it's hard to argue otherwise, right?

Had the great exhibition campaign,

then that's gave him a seven to lead entering the bottom

of the fourth inning.

The pitch count got high.

He only gave up three hits.

So that was good.

A Dublin two singles.

He issued three walks into wild pitch.

He did have five strikeouts.

So that was good.

He also committed an error.

That was not good.

Cubs a two run third Cavali committed a throwing error

on a pickoff attempt.

He threw 75 pitches, 46 strikes, 29 bulls.

So there's a lot to take in.

This was not like some wretched outing,

but clearly I would think he's disappointed.

And, you know, I think we all were expecting more

than three and two thirds innings.

And, you know, you look at how good the offense ended up being.

This was set up for Cavali to eat up some innings

and that unfortunately did not happen.

It's sure, but I think I look at this as his first two innings.

He retired six of the first seven batters.

He's got four strikeouts in that time.

The stuff was really good.

Fastball averaging 97 topped out at 99.

He's throwing 91 mile an hour changeups.

Had the good sweeper going.

The big strikeout of Pete Crow Armstrong

to get out of a first inning jam,

which I thought was real significant for him.

And then he gets to the third

and that's where he labors.

And some of it self-inflicted, the lead off walk,

the throwing error on the pickoff attempt.

There's also a little blooper into shallow left center field

that again on a normal day is an output.

The wind was blowing so hard

that James Wood just couldn't get to it.

That wasn't wood getting a bad read on it.

That was he couldn't get to it.

The wind knocked it down.

So that prolonged the inning.

So he had to work a lot to get through that one.

And then by the time he gets to the fourth,

I think he was just out of gas at that point.

I think there was a lot of adrenaline going on for him

understandably making this opening day start

for the first time and everything that he's been through.

And I think under different circumstances,

Blake Peterer might have let him try to get out of

that fourth inning, but he was looking at him

and thinking to himself,

I think he's expended himself both physically and mentally

just to get to this point.

Everybody in the bullpen is fresh, obviously.

So let's just make the move right now.

Yes, ideally you want him to start going more

than three and two thirds.

You don't want him to be as inefficient

as he was with the 75 pitches.

But I actually think it was a fairly encouraging start

for him.

The stuff looked really good.

He did come through in some big spots, got the swing

and miss, got into a little bit of trouble,

but minimized the damage for the most part.

I think he'll learn from this.

I think put him in different conditions

without all the attention and emotions of opening day,

just let him get to a groove now every fifth day.

I think he's going to be just fine.

Yeah, I agree.

I think it's one start.

I think we all understand you don't overreact to it.

And something that is, I think, becoming really interesting

at MLB and Blake Buttera has spoken to this so much now

of how clubs or evaluating pitchers is by stuff

and is by process as opposed to bottom line results.

And so when you look at an outing

to just go by the final line,

to just go by what was done to the ERA,

that's not how these teams are evaluating these outings.

And so with Cavali, the velocity was good.

He had the five strikeouts.

So there are definitely good things

that you can take from this outing.

I did want to mention what happened

with CJ Abrams in this game.

And I thought that we in this game had like

the ultimate example of CJ Abrams in a nutshell.

So Abrams was at starting shortstop and number six

when one for four with a two run single.

And it was a big hit in a beginning.

Six run fourth, bases loaded,

Abrams comes through with a first pitch,

two run single to the right field corner.

But he got thrown out in an attempt to get to second base

as Abrams took his sweet time getting out of the batter's box

due to admiring what he presumably thought was a home run.

Pitch on the way.

So we're gonna long drive, right?

Field down the line, tour the corner.

The weight is pushing it and it's gonna be a fair ball

off the wall in play.

Two runs are gonna score, throw to second base.

Abrams is out.

Weemer stops at third.

Blake buttera challenged the call

about at second base.

The call was upheld.

But you know, this was such a frustrating play

from that perspective,

but it also is Abrams in a nutshell.

It is a perfect microcosm of CJ Abrams.

It's a good play.

It's a two run single.

You can't be too mad at it,

but it's marred by a silly careless screw up by CJ Abrams.

And you know, it's one thing to be checked out

in August of a law season.

This is opening day, dude.

Like how are you not fully engaged?

How are you not dotting every eye and crossing every T

and minding every P and minding every Q?

New regime too.

And you make a mistake like that.

It just, it drove me not seeing that from Abrams.

So it's like, okay, I wanna give him praise

for the two run single,

but it's hard to feel great about that play

when you see what Abrams did

and you see what could have been on that play

and could have been with that inning.

That was a great inning that could have been even greater.

Yeah, exactly.

So they ran into two outs in this game,

both of them on singles trying to stretch into doubles,

but the difference between those two was really dramatic.

You had Joey Weemer with a two out single

in the fifth, advancing your runner first to third.

He tries to aggressively turn a double,

probably not the right decision,

because he was thrown out and with two outs

and Abrams coming up, that's not worth the risk there.

But that's an error of aggression.

That's him getting thrown out by trying to make a play happen.

What Abrams did, on the other hand, he got thrown out.

Yes, on a single trying to stretch to a double,

but he never should have been close

because if he's running hard out of the box,

that's an automatic double right from the start,

not even a close play at second base.

There's the difference.

Now, the wind is blowing, he hits it off the bat.

He's probably just a thinks home run.

You got to know better than that at Wrigley Field

on a day like this, that there's no guarantee of anything

you busted out of the box from the start.

I'm sure he heard about it from Blake Petera.

I'm sure he knows what happened there himself.

Let's see, I think these are the kind of things

that we're going to learn a lot about,

both Abrams as a player, but about Petera

and the clubhouse culture that they're trying to establish.

If it happens again, okay, there's a problem,

and this is reminiscent of what we've seen in the past.

If it's nipped in the bud, and that's it,

and we don't see him do that again,

or at least not want any kind of regular basis,

that's a good sign of both his own growth and maturity,

but also of Petera, the coaches,

and the rest of the guys in that clubhouse,

making sure that things like that

don't happen on a regular basis.

CJ Abrams and the city of Chicago do not mix well.

We have come to learn that in recent years,

and we saw that here again on Thursday, although again,

it was a two run single, so it's like,

you can't be that mad, but you just look at it,

and you're like, man, Abrams,

why did you not run that out?

Anyway.

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but we told him like, hey,

if you're going to be a huge part of this thing going forward,

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Now the pitch, waving, swinging a miss,

and a slurping breaking ball for Strike 3.

And an opening day, Curly W.

in the books in Chicago.

And the first managerial win for Blake Gutera,

getting the glad hands of the dugout from his coaching staff.

The final score, the Washington Nationals 10,

the Chicago Cubs 4.

And that's get the win, great to see that.

Off day on Friday games, two and three of the series

over Saturday and Sunday game two.

Saturday afternoon at 220 miles, Michaelis

will be the Nat starting pitcher game three,

Sunday afternoon at 220.

Jake Irvin will be the Nat starting pitcher.

We know more now about the Josiah Gray situation.

So, Nat starting pitcher, Josiah Gray,

the Nat's on March 19th, announced having optioned him

to Triple A Rochester and was a pretty anticipated move

because he was working his way back

from having undergone both Tommy John Surgery

and an internal brace procedure on his right UCL in July 2024.

But then, on March 23rd, got the devastating news

of the Nat's first having recalled Gray from Rochester

and then having put him on the 60 day enter list

retroactive to March 22nd due to a right flexor stray.

Now, the mechanics of this are interesting.

He was recalled from Rochester and put on the 60 day IEL,

the major league injured list, presumably because he got injured

while at the major league level.

The guy gets hurt at the major league level

but then gets demoted to the minors and is injured.

You can't just put him on the minor league

or on a minor league injured list.

You have to do the guy right and put him on the major league

injured list and he accrues service time.

So, we assumed that he had gotten hurt at some point

during his time at the major league level.

But you guys got info and intel on this prior to the game

and at least according to Blake Butera,

Gray got injured while at the minor league level.

Yeah, and Pultabony as well.

So, I think as we discussed the other day,

when Gray was sent down,

I had a few others interviewed him that afternoon

in West Palm Beach and he understood it.

Number one, the move and he also said that he felt great

and he felt like he was really close to being all the way back

to where he needed to be.

And there was no indication that there was anything wrong

with him physically at that point.

Then he takes the mound, it's either a day or two later,

I believe, in one of the back fields in Palm Beach

in a AAA spring training game

and afterwards reports that his elbow was sore.

So, they give him the MRI and they come up

with the flex or strain and they decide there, okay,

let's not take any chances.

Let's put you on the 60 day IL,

which means we're recalling you, forget about the demotion

to AAA, we're gonna put you back on the major league roster

and then on the 60 day IL, not the 15 day.

Listening to Nutera and Taboni talk about it,

number one, they both are indicating that this was

something that came up during that one start,

not necessarily a lingering issue throughout the spring.

They also kind of indicated that they thought,

if not for Josiah's history of injury here,

they might have actually tried to push him

a little more to go through it and not just shut him down

right away.

So, the implication was there was that they don't necessarily

think it's a huge deal that in under different circumstances,

they might not even have put him on the IL

or certainly not on the 60 day IL,

but given his history, they felt like it was worth it

to be cautious and they felt like Josiah Gray himself

appreciated that they're watching out for him

and not trying to force the issue and make him try

to go pitch if he's not at 100%.

And we'll see how this all plays out.

It's gonna be at least a couple months to we know anything.

You know, I don't just expect him to suddenly be back

within 60 days and we'll see if it happens at all.

I don't have a good answer on the why the Major League IL

and not the minor league IL,

it didn't get asked directly of anyone.

I'll see what I can find out the next few days in that regard.

It's possible that they're doing this for his benefit,

getting to work with the Major League training staff,

medical staff, and yes, giving him service time and salary

and maybe it's a little bit of a favor to him,

or maybe there is a little more to it

and it's not as simple as he was 100% before he was sent down

and then he had one minor league start that it started to hurt.

Yeah, I mean, you wonder if like, you know,

maybe his agent would dispute when exactly Josiah got hurt

and you know, you don't want things to get ugly

so you just put them on the Major League 60 day interlaced.

But yeah, that is the difference.

That is why we're bringing this up

because while he's on the Major League injured list,

a Major League injured list, in this case a 60 day IL,

he's a crewing service time.

Now, you know, at this point, which Josiah Gray,

I don't know how worried we should be

about service time for the agency, et cetera,

but you know, this kind of stuff does matter

from a front office perspective.

You're always thinking about this kind of thing

and it is interesting that, you know, we presume he got hurt

while at the Major League level

and at least according to Paul Taboni and Blake Butera

that is not the case.

All right, well, one and no, it's nice to be able to say that.

The reason that Zach Latel and Foster Griffin

are not starting in this series

that we're getting, Michaelis and Irvin,

we know Latel is still working his way into form.

Why not Foster Griffin in this series, do you think?

So just like the lineup,

this is about trying to match up as best as they can.

They view the Cubs as more right handed heavy

with their lineup and so they're putting

their three right handers out against them.

The Phillies obviously have some big lefty bats,

Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber most notably.

And so Foster Griffin will start game four

and facing them.

You know, you can't do this all year long.

Once you establish your rotation,

you kind of have to stick with it and that's what you have.

And you can't decide, well, I want this guy facing

this team and that guy facing that team.

But they figured they have the ability to do that

given who they're facing this first week of the season.

And then you throw in the Latel factor,

which is that he needed more time.

Now, I asked about him before the game

and Blake Butera did say that while he is rusty

and he's probably where he would be

after only a couple of spring training starts

in like early March instead of late March.

Latel is healthy and is, you know,

believing that he's good to go

for what I presume would be game five

or maybe game six because of the off day

you could have Kate Cavali start game five

and then Latel starts game six.

Either way, he's gonna have to pitch

one of those games in Philadelphia.

What they told him was make sure you are at your best.

Don't try to hump up and be more than you're ready to be.

At this point, it's more important

us that you are good to go later this summer

than it is that you're 100% now for your first start of the year.

So don't be shocked if he doesn't have a great showing

in that first game.

And if they maybe limit what they get from him

or even ask from him in that first game.

But that's the thought process behind that

and why we're gonna see the two righties

for the rest of the series

and then the lefty in Philadelphia.

This installment of that chant brought to us

by Mason Califist, the top legal recruiter

in Washington DC.

Mason has been with us since our first season.

You can reach him at 2024863535.

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We're just trying to help out.

Anyway, enjoy one and oh, the nats undefeated so far

in this 2026 regular season.

For Mark's Circleman, I'm Al Goldie,

we thank you for listening

and we'll talk to you next time on the natschat podcast.

Next pitch.

We have a line drive right field toward the line

that's going to get down for a hit and tie the game.

Coming into score is Chapparo.

House on his way to third.

Dail and Lyle holds it first.

This game is tied at two.

Dail and Lyle delivers the RBI single here

in the fourth inning.

And the nationals with a nice rally

have three hits in a row against Boyd.

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