Abrams trying to get out of "funk" at plate

PHILADELPHIA – The Nationals need to get their offense going in Sunday’s finale against the Phillies. Over the first three games of this four-game series, they’ve been outscored 21-6 and outhit 37-21.

As has been the case for most of this season, the offense goes as CJ Abrams goes. And right now, the young shortstop is struggling at the plate.

“He's been in a little bit of a funk, hitting-wise,” manager Davey Martinez said of Abrams during his pregame session with the media. “I really believe he's trying to do too much, I really do. So we gotta get him to calm down a little bit. And like I said, he's really good when he's another guy who stays left-center, right-center, and not try to do a whole lot.”

Since his participation in his first All-Star Game, Abrams is slashing .165/.234/.268 with a .502 OPS, 12 runs, four doubles, two home runs, 11 RBIs, seven stolen bases, five walks and 22 strikeouts. He entered the break with a .268 average. He enters today with a .246 average.

Abrams is also striking out 20.6 percent of the time in the second half.

“I really believe that he needs to start seeing a little bit more pitches,” Martinez said. "He's very aggressive, as we all know. And I don't mind him being aggressive, but get the ball in the zone. He's really chasing a lot of pitches out of the zone. I hate to move him (from the leadoff spot). I know I moved him to second at times, but I want to keep him up there. He's been successful up there. And as I always say, he's the guy that makes us go. But he needs to really start getting the ball in the zone. When he does that, he hits the ball hard.”

Abrams has a 35.7 percent chase rate this year, the highest it’s been since his rookie season. That lands him in the ninth percentile in being able to lay off pitches out of the zone. His whiff rate is also up to 24.9 percent and his percentage of contact in the zone is down to 81.1.

“It's hard to say,” Martinez said of why Abrams’ chase rate has gone up throughout the season. “Sometimes young players, they start chasing hits instead of understanding the process of how to get to a good position to hit. For him, I think he's going through that right now. He's not getting many hits. He's trying to chase getting hits, getting hits. I know a couple of times he lined down and it amounted to nothing. But to me, those should get you going. Understand what you did in that at-bat to line out like that. So he needs to start understanding, hey, they got defense, too. Sometimes you can't control where you hit the ball. You just want to give yourself a chance to hit the ball hard. That's what he needs to understand.”

Earlier in this series, Martinez had brought up the idea of giving Abrams a day off today. But with the Nats now riding a four-game losing streak and needing a win to avoid a four-game sweep, the skipper decided to keep one his best players in the lineup, with an off-day already on the schedule for tomorrow.

“We want to win today, so I just want to keep him out there,” Martinez said. “And I don't want him to start overthinking things. If I give him a day off today, then he's got two days off. I want him to go out there and play and work some things out.”

Abrams is hitless since his three-hit night in Baltimore on Tuesday. The off-day can wait until tomorrow. He needs to try to lead his team to a win today.

“He's going to get one tomorrow,” Martinez said. “We want to try to go 1-0 today. With him in the lineup, I feel like he could jump-start the offense.”