- 2 days ago
Charlie Slowes from Nationals radio joins the show to preview Washington's 2026 season.
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00:00We're really excited right now to link up with the voice of the Nats.
00:04You can listen to Nats Cubs right here on 106.7 The Fan this afternoon.
00:08Charlie Slows and Dave Jagler will have the call,
00:10and Charlie Slows joins us now on the Rude Guest Hotline.
00:13Charlie, how are you?
00:15I'm good. I'm good, guys. How are you?
00:17We're doing well, man.
00:20Charlie, obviously opening day at home is always the best feeling,
00:24but opening day at Wrigley's got to be really cool.
00:28It is. It's the second time the Nats have had a season opener at Wrigley Field.
00:33It's going to be a little warmer than the first time
00:35because we were freezing when they did it for 2012,
00:38but maybe a good omen because they went on to win 98 games that year
00:41and go to the postseason for the first time.
00:44So if that's good, go with that.
00:47Let's hope that happens again. You never know.
00:50What do you expect from Cade today?
00:53Well, you know, he's looked terrific.
00:56He looked terrific in the spring.
00:57His fastball was electric.
00:59We're hoping that that continues for him,
01:02and he gets off to a great start, 100% healthy.
01:06Guy's doing it for him.
01:08It certainly is.
01:09I think, you know, for Cade Cavalli, he's had such an interesting journey.
01:13First-round pick, so much excitement,
01:15and then just deals with injury after injury after injury.
01:20You were down there in the spring.
01:22How do you think he has, like, mentally grown from all the fights he's had,
01:28all the injury battles, to now getting that opening day start?
01:33I mean, he's super excited.
01:34There's no question about that.
01:37You know, you go through with Tommy John and setbacks in the recovery
01:40and just never feeling right and wondering, you know,
01:43when you'll be able to just air it out and be able to recover
01:46and do it again in five days.
01:48He was finally able to do that last year as they worked him along in the minor leagues
01:52and then came up and had the electric stuff at the end of the season.
01:56And so a great honor for him with some veterans on the staff that they brought in
02:00to hand the ball to him for opening day.
02:02And I think everybody's excited to see how he is going to be
02:06because he has, you know, potential.
02:09Obviously, he's number one today, but he has number one type stuff.
02:14Absolutely.
02:14And what are we expecting from the bats, Charlie?
02:17I don't know if the wind's blowing out there in Chicago or what,
02:19but, you know, last year James Wood had an all-time first half of the season.
02:24Those numbers slowed down in the second.
02:26Let's start with Wood.
02:27I mean, he's the power bat this lineup's going to need.
02:30What are you expecting from him?
02:34Well, he's in the leadoff spot in the lineup that Blake Dutera is making out
02:38for the first time.
02:38We were wondering about that.
02:40He said he had six or seven different lineups that he was playing around with,
02:44and he used Wood in the leadoff spot a lot in spring training.
02:47We didn't know if that was to get at bats, as many as possible,
02:50whether we really liked it.
02:52Wood seemed to fare well when he was in that position last year,
02:55especially the first half of the year when he drew a ton of walks.
02:58So we'll see how it plays out.
03:00You know, when you're in the leadoff spot,
03:01you're going to get more at bats than anybody else.
03:03So we'll see if he can sustain what he did in the first half through an entire season
03:08and really his second go-around for a full season after coming up in the middle of 2024.
03:15Charlie, what's been your favorite opening day Nat story?
03:20Oh, wow.
03:23Well, there's 21 of them before today.
03:26Favorite opening day.
03:27I don't know if I have a single one.
03:29Actually, I do, because it was the first opening day at RFK State.
03:34After all those years, Washington, D.C. was out without baseball.
03:38And watching people at RFK Stadium, the press box was kind of on a catwalk.
03:43You could look out and see the people at RFK Stadium.
03:46You remember, they came in in the mid-level, and then the lower bowl was below street level.
03:51So I could see people come in, and the Nats were taking batting practice,
03:55and watch people of all different ages, especially people who were alive when the Senators played at RFK Stadium.
04:02I'm basically seeing people crying, tears running down their cheeks.
04:06They were so excited to have baseball back.
04:08And then they had a great game.
04:10LeVon Hernandez throwing a shutout until the ninth inning.
04:13Chad Tracy hits a three-run homer, but Chad Cordero comes in and closes the door, and the Nats won.
04:19Sellout crowd, 45,000.
04:22President Bush threw out the first pitch.
04:23It was an unbelievable atmosphere.
04:26You know, outside of that, the opening of National Spark,
04:28Ryan Zimmerman hits a walk-off home run to beat the Braves at the bottom of the ninth inning.
04:32I would say those two are at the top of the list, are hard to top.
04:37So, dude, I was at both of those, Charlie.
04:39And for me, just as a D.C. kid that never had his own team, I always rooted for the
04:45Orioles,
04:46but that was never your team, you know what I mean?
04:49To be there at RFK was emotional, and then to be there at Nats Park when Zim hit that bomb
04:57and, like, seeing â and I've been clear, I don't think they did a great job with Nats Park.
05:03It's a nice park, but, like, when you go around baseball and you see some of the other parks,
05:06they left a lot to be desired, I would say.
05:10But to be at Nats Park in that moment when it's brand new, I don't know which one was better.
05:16They were both epic, and I ended both nights at Capitol Lounge, which was pretty damn fun, too.
05:21Those were both just incredible moments, man.
05:25Yeah, RFK Stadium, you know, the way that team got off to a 5-4 start on a road trip
05:31that took them to Atlanta, Miami, and Philadelphia that nobody expected,
05:35and then you got to the point where they were playing 500 baseball to get to June,
05:39and they run off 10 wins in a row and go 20-6 that month, and they're 19 games over
05:45500.
05:46Every â a five-and-a-half game first-place lead at the midway point of the season,
05:49everywhere you went in the city, there was Nats gear, there was stuff on the street signs.
05:56It was amazing.
05:58It was like they had already won something without winning anything.
06:02So, as we get to this year, right, obviously the scope of the operation has changed in Washington.
06:09You get a regime change in Rizzo out and to Boney and all the people he's instilled.
06:17You also kind of get a mindset change going from more scouting to now really, really heavy analytics-based.
06:26As this season goes on, who are some of the guys you think might surprise fans that aren't necessarily expecting
06:33a lot?
06:33I know there's a lot of excitement.
06:34I talked to Ryan Zimmerman the other night at the Red Carpet Gala, and he was talking about Brady House.
06:39I was just talking with one of the fans in here who was saying Brady was really hitting well in
06:44the spring.
06:44Is that a guy you think could maybe emerge this season?
06:49Well, naturally, Zim would be taking a close look at the guy playing.
06:52I figured that too, yeah.
06:55But he was high on Brady last year, and, you know, Brady had a slow start coming up from AAA.
07:02He didn't hit for the power that he did in the minor leagues, but he had a great spring, which,
07:06you know, doesn't necessarily mean anything.
07:08We've seen guys have great springs, get up to slow starts.
07:11You know, Zim used to be like that.
07:12He hated when he had a good spring because usually men need to get off to a good start.
07:18So we'll see how it plays out.
07:19I mean, he's getting a chance to be in there almost every day against all comers.
07:23The other guy I'm really excited to see play, and he's already a super exciting player defensively, is Nassim Nunez.
07:32He's going to get a chance to play a lot at second base.
07:35He's a magician with the glove.
07:36He can steal a ton of bases.
07:38And if he's able to translate that hand-eye coordination that makes him an electric fielder to the batter's box
07:45and be able to hit and get on base, the value for him skyrockets.
07:52He will be a super exciting player to watch.
07:55Players love the clubhouse.
07:56Around the clubhouse, he's one of the most popular guys.
07:58Everybody loves him.
07:59The more you watch him, the more you like watching him play.
08:04Nunez at the red carpet, he's got some swag to him too.
08:07Kind of a quiet guy, but he was dressed well, and he was an exciting guy to kind of chat
08:15and just talk to a little bit.
08:17One guy that I know a little bit, and I'm just a huge fan of, like the human to start
08:23with,
08:23and then the way he plays defense is Jacob Young.
08:28Is there growth potential in his bat?
08:31Can he get to that 280 range and then really become a weapon for this team?
08:38Well, you know, like Nunez, that's something we need to find out.
08:41With Dylan Cruz having consent to AAA, he had a little less of a log jam in the outfield.
08:47Today it's going to be Wood, Jacob Young, and Joey Weimer in right.
08:51Daylon Lyle is going to be the designated hitter today.
08:54Matt's getting an extra right-handed bat in there with a left-handed pitcher and Matt Boyd going for the
08:59tubs.
09:00But they need to find that out.
09:02Last year was very much a struggle for him, particularly against right-handed pitching.
09:08You know, when he hurt his wrist last year, he didn't bunt after he hurt his hand,
09:14getting hit by a pitch, trying to bunt early in the year.
09:16So it took some of the element of speed out of his game.
09:19He struggled on the bases, getting leads and getting jumps for stolen bases,
09:25particularly against left-handed pitching.
09:27We'll have to watch for that today.
09:29Something Dave and I will talk about in our pregame show, the pitching matchup.
09:32Matthew Boyd has 27 career pickoffs.
09:3711 of them were last year, and he led the major leagues in pickoffs.
09:41So the Nats plan to be aggressive on the bases, but you really got to be careful with this guy
09:46on the mound today.
09:48Charlie, last one.
09:49There's been some question what they're going to do at first base.
09:51It's not Luis Garcia today.
09:54What do you expect from a first base position?
09:58Well, I think right now you're going to see a platoon, which means it'll be mostly Garcia
10:03because you face more right-handed pitching than left-handed pitching.
10:08I don't know that they'll use one of them as a DH at times.
10:11That's possible also.
10:14They have two backup infielders in Jorbit Bebas and Jose Tena, both left-handed hitters.
10:19Bebas can play second, short, and third.
10:21Tena is mostly second and third.
10:24So they're a little bit more of a left-handed hitting roster.
10:27You got Drew Millis, the backup catcher, is a switch hitter.
10:31And so, you know, one of the things to watch is how they tinker with the roster, with the bench.
10:36I think a lot of that will depend, too, on, you know, when Dylan Cruz gets here
10:42because that might not necessarily knock an outfielder off the roster.
10:46It might knock an infielder off the roster.
10:48So all that remains to be seen.
10:50I think we're going to see with flexibility of players who have options for the minor leagues,
10:55same thing with the bullpen, so that you don't have tired arms.
10:58I think you're going to have more roster flexibility and changes during the course of the year
11:03than what we've seen the past few years where they didn't have that type of roster flexibility.
11:08Hey, Charlie, have a great call on the game.
11:10Enjoy Wrigley.
11:11Thank you so much for making time.
11:13We'll be listening this afternoon as the Nats take on the Cubs opening day.
11:17All right, guys, I'll give you a tip.
11:19The wind is supposed to start blowing out at 1 o'clock Central Time,
11:22and the temperature by the late afternoon is supposed to drop 30 degrees in two hours.
11:30That's a lot.
11:3160 to 30.
11:32That's insane.
11:33Sounds like you're saying the wind blowing out makes you want to take the over, Charlie,
11:38but I don't know what to do with the temperature.
11:41Right now there's no wind.
11:44So I don't know if you can do that before the game starts
11:46because I don't know when it's going to change.
11:48Okay.
11:49Anyway, I'll consult Doug Kammerer.
11:51Thank you for the time, Charlie.
11:53All right, Charlie.
11:53Appreciate you, Charlie.
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