{"id":81427,"date":"2024-07-27T12:38:51","date_gmt":"2024-07-27T16:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=81427"},"modified":"2024-07-29T11:11:46","modified_gmt":"2024-07-29T15:11:46","slug":"mackenzie-gore-pitch-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/27\/mackenzie-gore-pitch-struggles\/","title":{"rendered":"Mackenzie Gore Needs To Pitch Through Struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"

MacKenzie Gore<\/a> has hit a wall; there is no need to sugarcoat it. He has a 7.63 ERA in his last seven starts and has seen his season go off the rails after Memorial Day for a third straight year. There are calls from the fanbase to shut down the 25-year-old left-hander, but unless he is hurt, that would be counterproductive. To be the front of the rotation arm he has the potential to be; Gore needs to be able to pitch deep into the dog days of summer.<\/p>\n

Mackenzie Gore Needs To Pitch Through Struggles<\/h2>\n

The hot starts:<\/h3>\n

Mackenzie Gore’s three seasons in the MLB follow a similar pattern. He comes out of the gates looking like a potential ace before hitting a wall once June comes around. In 2022, Gore looked like a Rookie of the Year<\/a> candidate after two months, posting a 1.71 ERA through his first 42 innings. However, things went sideways for Gore in June and July, finishing the season with a 4.50 ERA. After he got traded to the Nationals in the Juan Soto trade, he did not pitch for the rest of the season. In 2023, Gore also started strong, posting a 3.57 ERA in 58 innings entering June. Once the dog days of summer came, Gore faded, posting a 4.42 ERA by season’s end.<\/p>\n

The drop-off has been just as extreme in 2024. When May ended, Gore’s ERA was 2.91 through 58 2\/3 innings. Since then, he has collapsed, with his ERA ballooning to 4.51. Gore is laboring through starts, struggling to find a way to get outs consistently. This is a far cry from the pitcher who was carving through quality lineups the first two months of the season. The Nationals are in a difficult situation when it comes to handling Gore.<\/p>\n

Let him pitch:<\/h3>\n

The best way for Gore to learn how to hold up in the dog days of summer is to pitch. This is a problem Gore will have to solve if he is to be relied on as a piece of the National’s long-term plans. Unless there is something physically wrong with Gore, shutting him down is not the right option. He has pitched 105 2\/3 innings, far less than the 136 1\/3 he threw last year. His arm should be able to handle the workload, but the results have not been there. Gore implied that something was off with his mechanics<\/a> following his last start, but he did not look much better last night against the Cardinals. It is fair to say that the problem has not been fixed yet.<\/p>\n

Gore will get more opportunities to figure things out at the Major League level, but if he keeps regressing, the Nationals must make a choice. They could either shut him down or send him to Triple-A. The optics of sending down the ‘ace of the future’ would not be good, but it is an interesting option. It would allow Gore to pitch in a lower-stress environment where he could iron out some kinks in his game. Triple-A would not be an insult to Gore; it would be an opportunity. If he continues to struggle, it should be an option the Nationals consider.<\/p>\n

Main Photo Credits: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MacKenzie Gore has hit a wall; there is no need to sugarcoat it. He has a 7.63 ERA in his last seven starts and has seen his season go off the rails after Memorial Day for a third straight year. There are calls from the fanbase to shut down the 25-year-old left-hander, but unless he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5225,"featured_media":81443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,19],"tags":[1327],"class_list":["post-81427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-nationals","tag-mackenzie-gore"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5225"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}