James

Wood

Two of those strikeouts were against Eury Pérez, so that’s easy to understand. Wood is just 2-for-20 in the early going. Interestingly, it seems like the Nationals are still undecided where they’re going to hit him. He batted second behind CJ Abrams today. Two days ago, he hit first with Abrams batting third. The day before that, he hit fourth with Abrams batting second. Wood mostly hit second last year, and it’s still probably the spot that makes the most sense for him. That Wood, Abrams, Daylen Lile and Luis García Jr. are all lefties and maybe the team’s four best hitters means there’s really no helping stacking left-handers at the top, with righty Dylan Crews perhaps hitting third between them.

Wood has not had a successful spring training, but he showed off his ability to put the ball into the gap and his underrated wheels with the two-run triple. The contact issues for Wood are significant and likely will make hitting for a high average — even with so much hard contact — a challenge, but there’s still enormous fantasy upside in his left-handed bat.

Wood led off the first inning with a base hit, then later gave the Nationals the lead with a solo blast off Brandon Eisert in the seventh before extending the team’s lead with a single to drive in a run in the eighth. The 23-year-old outfielder has hit .257/.351/.477 with 31 homers, 87 runs scored, 94 RBI, and 15 steals across 686 plate appearances.

Wood became the second-ever National to reach 30 homers and 15 stolen bases with the effort. The 23-year-old hit both roundtrippers to center, and both traveled well over 430 feet. As expected, there have been some ups and downs for Wood in his first full MLB season, but there’s been way more good than bad. He has a chance to be a special fantasy baseball player. This version is pretty dang good, too.

Wood smacked a one-out double off of Hurston Waldrep in the first inning but wound up getting stranded at third base. The 23-year-old slugger then tagged Dylan Lee for a 416-foot (102.7 mph EV) solo shot to lead off the eighth inning, pulling the Nationals to within a run at 3-2. On the season, he’s now slashing .255/.351/.465 with 28 homers, 90 RBI and 15 stolen bases (in 22 attempts) over 672 plate appearances.

Wood is back in Washington’s lineup after sitting out Monday’s series opener with tough lefty Chris Sale toeing the rubber for Atlanta. The 23-year-old fantasy star has struck out a staggering 215 times this season, which puts him just eight behind Mark Reynolds for the all-time single-season record, which was set back in 2009.

Wood also sat against Sale when the Braves faced him last week. He’s hitting just .208/.288/.333 this month, though Statcast thinks he’s been pretty unlucky, crediting him with a .335 xwOBA.

Wood didn’t truly fill up the box score today, but this was still one of his best games of the second half; he put the ball in play four times, all at over 100 mph. While he doesn’t have a ton to show for it, he’s sporting a ridiculous 76% hard-hit rate this month. Of course, it does hurt that he has 28 strikeouts to go along with his 33 balls in play in 67 plate appearances.

CJ Abrams is also getting a breather in this one. Wood takes a seat against Atlanta ace Chris Sale after striking out four times in the front-end of Tuesday’s twin bill at Nationals Park. It’ll be Josh Bell taking over at DH and Nasim Nuñez handling shortstop during the nightcap.

Bell has been a force of nature over the past week, batting .391 (9-for-23) with four homers and 15 RBI over his last seven games. The 33-year-old veteran slugger takes a seat in this one with righty Mike Burrows toeing the rubber for Pittsburgh. It’ll be Andrés Chaparro getting an opportunity at the cold corner with franchise building block James Wood at DH.