The Nationals are road warriors in 2017.
In the midst of their second road trip of nine or more games, they are 12-1. The Nationals went a club-record 9-1 on their initial long trip through Atlanta, New York and Colorado in April.
This trip, which spans three cities in California for 10 days, features stops in San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles. The Nats start the fourth game of this road trip tonight in Oakland already 3-0 on the swing.
The Nationals managed to win the finale of a three-game series against the Giants series 3-1 without star Bryce Harper. Max Scherzer fired a complete game for the win, needing only 33 pitches to finish the final four innings. Harper is in the midst of a three-game suspension for charging the mound to take on Hunter Strickland after getting hit by a pitch on Monday.
Besides starting pitching, timely offense and a recently more consistent bullpen, second baseman Daniel Murphy has been ridiculously good on the road this season.
In 25 away games, Murphy has a .356/.407/.683 slash line. That adds up to a 1.090 OPS. He has 71 total bases on the road and 35 at home - in almost the same amount of games (25 games away, 23 home).
Murphy's extra-base hit splits home and away are even more astonishing. At home, Murphy has seven doubles and one homer with 12 RBIs. On the road, Murphy has eight doubles, one triple, eight homers and 24 RBIs. He has scored 22 runs on the road, 10 runs at home.
A split OPS+ number of 100, which rates a batter's OPS relative to the rest of the league, is considered good compared to his counterparts . Murphy's split OPS+ is 100 at home and an astounding 198 on the road.
Some team trends to think about as we close:
* The Nationals are third in the major leagues with 17 road wins (17-10). The Astros lead the way at 18-6 and the Rockies are 19-9. The Twins are 15-5 on the road.
* The Nats are 18-0 when they score at least six runs. The Nats are 20-0 when they hold opponents to three runs or fewer. Sixteen of their 33 wins have been comeback wins.
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