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In 21 games in the so-called second-half of the 2017 campaign, Daniel Murphy has put up a .286/.342/.586 line with six doubles and five home runs in 76 plate appearances.
Murphy sat out of last night’s game with a hip issue according to what the Washington Nationals’ skipper, Dusty Baker, told reporters after the 7-3 loss to the Miami Marlins in the nation’s capital.
“Murph, his hip was bothering him some, he’s played a lot, and so we thought it would be better for us to skip a day then we’ll see how he is tomorrow,” Baker explained.
Last time Murphy got a day off, in the finale with the Fish in Miami last week, he came back with a two-homer game against the Chicago Cubs in the series opener in Wrigley Field.
“We gave Murph a day off two days ago prior to the off day and he came out strong, cause it looked like he was getting a little weary, so we gave him the day off and he responded big time for us,” Baker told reporters after the 4-2 win over the Cubs last Friday.
On the year, the Nationals’ 32-year-old second baseman has put up a .332/.384/.575 line with 35 doubles, 19 home runs, a .395 wOBA, and 142 wRC+ in 103 games and 432 PAs, over which he’s been worth 3.0 fWAR.
Adrian Sanchez started at second last night, and though he made a baserunning gaffe that led to a rally-killing, inning-ending double play, running from first on a one-out lineout to left by Ryan Zimmerman and getting doubled up on the throw in, he went 3 for 4 at the plate on the night, and he impressed his manager, outside of the mistake.
“That’s a mistake where you have to know how many outs there are,” Baker said. “I’m sure it won’t happen again, but that doesn’t alleviate that mistake tonight. And plus, he played a good game, he hit the ball hard tonight.”
Murphy is out of the lineup again in the third of four with the Fish. Sanchez is back at second. Try not to panic just yet...
HERE’S THE NATIONALS’ LINEUP FOR THE 3RD OF 4 WITH THE FISH:
#Nats vs #Marlins 3 of 4: Goodwin CF, Sanchez 2B, Harper RF, Zimmerman 1B, Rendon 3B, Wieters C, Kendrick LF, Difo SS, Gonzalez LHP
— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) August 9, 2017
LINEUP NOTES: Seriously, try not to panic about Murphy. Hey, at lease Howie Kendrick is back from his back issues. Also: Stephen Strasburg threw a sim game today in Nats Park. Mike Rizzo told The Sports Junkies this morning that two weeks was a reasonable estimate for his return. That’s all we got. Seriously, quit panicking about Murphy...