Washington Nationals Breakout Pitcher Continues Rough Start to Spring Training
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The Washington Nationals had some breakout performances in the pitching staff last season, but one of those players have not been able to replicate that success so far in spring training.
Southpaw DJ Herz had a surprisingly effective rookie campaign, not great but good. He had a 4.16 ERA over 19 starts with a 10.8 K/9 last year.
Herz has not looked nearly as promising through his first three outings this year.
He started an early game against the Houston Astros, giving up two earned runs and three hits while walking two batters and giving up a home run.
Herz's second appearance of this spring came out of the bullpen, and it looks like that may be his most likely route to innings in the Majors this year as well.
His first inning there went well, he got the first two batters to fly out. He did surrender a nine-pitch walk, but forced a fielder's choice to get out of the inning.
When he came out for the second inning, things immediately went south as he walked the bases loaded, the last one being on four straight pitches.
Again, he was able to limit the damage, but still gave up a hit and two runs in that outing.
The 24-year-old made his second start of spring training on Saturday against the St. Louis Cardinals and it also went poorly.
There was a little bit of struggle with the fielding, which made things worse, but he ended up with another walk and four more hits given up.
He pitched 3.1 innings, gave up four hits and four runs (two earned), and walked another batter. He is now at an 8.10 ERA with seven walks in 6.2 innings pitched. It is still a small sample size, but not at all where Washington would like him to be heading into the season.
Herz didn't surrender too many walks last year, he had 3.7 BB/9 which is not great but also not disastrous. Just a little below average. He was a strikeout machine, though, which made it better.
The 24-year-old has not been able to get his control settled and he has not had the same strikeout success, making matters worse.
The Nationals did bring in Michael Soroka this offseason, which looks like it was a great move. Herz has not done enough to work his way back into the rotation to start the year, so he will have to do well in the minors to win a job.
