Nick Senzel’s 3-for-3 day powers the Nats to another win over the Braves.
The offseason addition had a home run and two doubles in a 7-3 victory.
In the offseason, Nick Senzel and the Washington Nationals took a chance on each other. Senzel signed in the hope that a change of scenery would do him some good after five years with the Cincinnati Reds. Washington, in turn, believed he could recapture the pop that made him the No. 2 draft pick in 2016.
With three swings in Saturday afternoon’s 7-3 win over the Atlanta Braves, that partnership looked pretty good. Senzel finished with three extra-base hits, the last of which — a two-run homer into the visiting bullpen at Nationals Park in the sixth inning, after which he rounded the bases stone-faced — capped a second straight win.
“I feel like I’m also my worst critic,” Senzel said. “I always think I can do better. But that’s the game of baseball.”
That humble approach has helped him blossom and also allowed him to focus on his plate discipline — a tenet Manager Dave Martinez credited for much of the 28-year-old’s success. Though he had always sported a walk rate around MLB average, it has climbed to 13.8 percent this year, putting him in the top 5 percent of major leaguers, per Baseball Savant.
Though a player’s eye for the strike zone can be difficult to change, Martinez said the Nationals just had to show Senzel how effective he is when he’s disciplined. He has a .992 OPS on the pitch that follows a ball, per the website TruMedia, the best mark on the team.
“When you don’t have the success of getting hits … walks can keep you afloat in a sense,” Senzel said. “Not like I’m trying to draw walks but just trying to understand, maybe situationally, what the pitchers are trying to do.”
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His OPS began the day at .726 OPS; it ended the day at a team-high .793. He now is a key cog in Washington’s lineup and has worked his way into being a potential trade chip at the deadline.
Senzel’s production has come in bunches — he has six home runs, and his first five came in a five-game span in late April — and he could be entering another hot stretch now. He credits his success to calculated aggression.
“You try to shrink the zone into what your strengths are, and I think what I’ve learned over the course of my career is the more aggressive I can be, the less I swing at maybe bad pitches,” Senzel said. “You’ve got to be aggressive in this league.”
