Washington Nationals Manager Gets Honest About Young Starting Pitcher
Teams can spend all of the winter and spring training coming up with the perfect game plan to succeed once the regular season rolls around. Alas, nothing ever goes exactly according to plan, which the Washington Nationals learned firsthand right out of the gate.
One of the big question marks coming into the 2024 campaign was their starting pitching. Who would step up to help lead the staff?
Josiah Gray, one of the key parts of the return package from the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Max Scherzer and Trea Turner trade, was an All-Star in 2023. Expectations were that he could be the team’s ace.
That didn’t end up being the case. Gray was injured after two starts and eventually underwent Tommy John surgery.
The Nationals had a contingency plan in place.
Jackson Rutledge was going to be the first call-up from Triple-A when the need arose. Unfortunately, Rutledge was dealing with an ankle injury and could not be promoted.
That led to Washington calling up Mitchell Parker.
A fifth-round pick in the 2020 MLB Draft out of San Jacinto College, North Campus. He made his MLB debut on April 15th against the Dodgers on the road and the rest, as they say, is history.
Parker ended up sticking with the team all season, with his rookie campaign coming to a close on Tuesday night. He finished on a high note, firing five shutout innings against the Kansas City Royals.
His performance throughout the year was something the team believed he would be capable of at some point after a strong spring but didn’t necessarily expect right away.
“Uh … I’m going to say maybe,” manager Davey Martinez said, via Mark Zuckerman of Masn, when asked if the team saw this coming from Parker. “Because the stuff is really good. The biggest thing I was afraid of was him losing the strike zone. And when things got awry, that’s what happened.”
As is the case with any young player, the lefty had his share of issues. He had four starts this season that he allowed at least five runs without completing four innings.
The Philadelphia Phillies knocked him around for nine runs in one start and the Milwaukee Brewers tagged him for five in another before he even finished the first inning.
Both of those teams provided plenty of opponents with headaches throughout the season as division winners.
On the other end of the spectrum, Parker did have some bright spots. One of them was completing at least six in 13 out of 29 starts. Another was three or fewer earned runs were scored against him on 19 occasions.
The talent is certainly there. Will there be a jump in production for him as there was for Gray and Jake Irvin?
Only time will tell, but Parker can be happy with how his rookie season went, as he heads into the offseason with a rotation spot locked down for 2025.
“It’s definitely going to be feeling good going into the offseason,” he said. “I learned a lot about what we’re going to have to work on to come into next year even stronger, even better.”
