Washington Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo talked to 106.7 the FAN in D.C.’s Sports Junkies last week about the Nats’ record in series openers, which was 1-7 at the point, and is now 1-9, after losses to the San Diego Padres in the first of three last weekend and to the St. Louis Cardinals last night.
“You like to win that first game,” Rizzo said, “... it kind of sets up the series for you. Obviously you can’t sweep unless you win that first game, so the first games of the series are often the busiest, most active days of a series because that’s when you go through the advance reports, that’s when you do all your major preparation for the upcoming series and that type of thing, so we’re going to take a look at how we’re preparing and what we’re doing and maybe tweak a few things, but I just think that it’s an anomaly right now and we just have to win series and try to get out of the gates quickly and give ourselves an opportunity to go on a little bit of a run and with our rotation and our lineup even as banged up as it is, I think we have a run in us in the near future and when we start putting it together.