Dusty Baker’s usual lineup will start Friday night’s game against Cardinals left-hander Jaime Garcia. The batting order has been tweaked a few times since the start of the season, and Ben Revere came back from injury, of course. The defensive alignment, however, has largely stayed consistent. That defense has played well so far this season.
Entering Friday night’s game, the Nationals had committed 19 errors, second fewest in baseball. Their .989 fielding percentage is tied for best in the big leagues with the Giants and Mets, and they have the third-best defensive efficiency — the rate at which balls put in play are converted to outs — in baseball. None of those statistics measure the number of spectacular plays a defense has made. Baker does not care much about those, prouder of the fact that his team does not usually “give away outs and beat ourselves.”
“This game is not designed for 28 or 29 outs,” Baker said. “You don’t have to make the spectacular, but you gotta concentrate enough to make the everyday regular play, then hope you do make a couple spectaculars on the way. Most teams that lose are teams that play poor defense. You don’t win playing defense, but you certainly lose playing defense.”
The Nationals’ defense ranks in the middle of the majors in most of those advanced metrics that do measure range or standout plays, and it has completed the seventh-most double plays in baseball, 119. Whether one puts weight in traditional defensive statistics, new metrics, or neither, these Nationals have looked better this year than they did last season. They are on pace for 64 errors this season, though pace with regards to defense does not necessarily mean much at all. The Nationals made 109 errors last year.
LINEUP
Nationals
Revere CF
Werth LF
Harper RF
Murphy 2B
Zimmerman 1B
Rendon 3B
Ramos C
Espinosa SS
Scherzer P
Cardinals
G. Garcia 3B
Diaz SS
Holliday LF
Piscotty RF
Moss 1B
Molina C
Grichuk CF
Wong 2B
J. Garcia P
