The Nationals announced that they’ve signed veteran left-hander Jonny Venters to a minor league contract and assigned him to Double-A Harrisburg. The 2018 National League Comeback Player of the Year was released by the Braves earlier this month.
Venters, 34, returned from three Tommy John surgeries and a five-year MLB absence in 2018 to give the Braves 34 1/3 innings of 3.67 ERA ball. The southpaw averaged 7.1 K/9, 4.2 BB/9 and 0.26 HR/9 to go along with a superlative 69.1 percent ground-ball rate in that terrific comeback effort. Unfortunately, the 2019 season wasn’t kind to him. Venters appeared in just nine games with the Braves, pitching a total of 4 2/3 innings but surrendering nine earned runs (plus another four unearned runs). He faced 31 batters and allowed more to reach than he retired (nine hits, eight walks).
On the plus side for Venters, his velocity held up (93.3 mph average fastball), but that’s only a small silver lining on an otherwise tough stretch of games. For the Nationals, though, there’s little to lose in terms of giving him a look. The Washington bullpen has been an unmitigated disaster beyond Sean Doolittle, and even he’s begun to slip a bit recently — perhaps due to an elevated workload. Nationals relievers have the worst ERA in baseball by more than a run (7.14), and they rank 28th in FIP (5.27), 29th in xFIP (5.13) and 24th in SIERA (4.38).
I love Venters as a Braves fan but he’s done.
I only live about 30 minutes from Harrisburg so maybe I’ll have to go watch him pitch
Jonathan Papplebon is next….Nats and Red Sox are in the bidding…..
What, Dennis Eckersley wasn’t available?
No he’s too busy calling redsox games
They are literally at the point of trying out any warm body that is cheap and available. Dodgers shouldn’t be too far behind.
Perfect! Leave no stone unturned!
If the arm hasn’t fallen off yet, try it!
At this point any released outfielder goes to the Mets and released pitchers to the Nats. It has to be a time saver for the agent who only has to make one call.
worth a try
Desperate times demand even more desperate moves.
Loved Venters and his storyline but it has to end sometime. Its not like pitchers ever end their career after having a Cy Young type season.
Another scrap heap acquisition by Rizzo, As a Nationals’ fan, just smh.
Just looked at the standings and was amazed to see the Nationals so far out. Thought they were like maybe 5 out. jeeeez
Rizzo just doesn’t know what he is doing anymore. Should’ve never had gotten rid of Dusty
If Venters had anything left the Nats would have faced him last night.
Santiago Casilla, Christian Bethancourt, Edward Mujica, Carter Capps, and Bartolo? They sound better than Wander Suero and Matt Grace.
Doolittle had an issue with his mechanics for a while which he has apparently fixed. Workload isn’t an issue yet.
We are not in 2020 or after that. We are still in 2019 last time I looked. This guy should have said the 2019 season hasn’t been kind to him.