Tonight's Game

Tonight's game.

It's hard to overestimate the importance of this series. The Nationals are on something of a roll, and they would put some serious distance between themselves and Philly in the wild card race if they can win three out of these four games. That's no easy task, especially because they will be playing in Philly. On the other hand, if they lose the series, they may go a long way toward putting an insurmountable distance between themselves and both the Astros and the Phillies. Other than that, of course, this series is no big deal.

This is a pretty even pitching matchup. Livan Hernandez sports a VORP of 36.8, while Bret Myers' VORP is 33.9. Livan really needs to step up the challenge tonight. He wasn't able to do that in his last start, and he's been incredibly volatile recently, but this is a means for him to put all of that behind him.

The Nats start Cristian Guzman and Preston Wilson tonight. It will be interesting to see whether they can hit in Philadelphia the way they hit in Colorado. Indeed, it will be interesting to see whether the entire Nationals' lineup can even come close to the offensive attack they mounted in Coors Field. We won't be holding our breath, but all the Nationals need to do is a fraction of what they did in Colorado for them to be successful in Philly.

Go Nats!