In an effort to align their best pitchers against their division rivals, the Washington Nationals will skip Max Scherzer‘s scheduled start tomorrow and instead pitch Saturday as reported by James Wagner of the Washington Post. Doing this will align Scherzer, Jordan Zimmerman and Stephen Strasburg to face the mets twice in the final month of the season. Gio Gonzalez will star tomorrow in Scherzer’s place.
The first of the final two series against the Mets will take place in Washington, September 7-9 and the second series will take place at Citi Field to close-out the season.
Scherzer and Strasburg missed the Nationals past two series vs the Metropolitans including the crucial July 31-August 2 series where the Mets pulled ahead in the division, a lead they have not relinquished. Scherzer was missed by chance while Strasburg missed both series due to injury.
As of today, the Mets sit 5.5 games ahead in the NL East.
