{"id":35371,"date":"2025-05-18T03:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T03:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/35371\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T03:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T03:35:09","slug":"nl-east-notes-young-mauricio-edwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/35371\/","title":{"rendered":"NL East Notes: Young, Mauricio, Edwards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s game between the Nationals\u00a0and the Orioles included a scary moment where Nats center fielder Jacob Young<\/a> crashed into the outfield wall at full speed and went down, as noted by Spencer Nausbaum of the Washington Post<\/a>. He eventually departed the game with a left shoulder injury and was replaced by Alex Call<\/a> in the outfield. Fortunately, Nausbaum<\/a> was among those to note after the game that x-rays on Young\u2019s shoulder came back negative. The 25-year-old\u2019s status remains uncertain ahead of further evaluation tomorrow, but it\u2019s undeniably a good omen for the club on the heels of an exciting win over Baltimore.<\/p>\n

Young, 25, hasn\u2019t hit much in his second season as a regular fixture of the Nationals lineup. Across 124 plate appearances this season, he\u2019s posted a meager slash line of just .215\/.300\/.252 with zero home runs and just four doubles. Despite that lackluster performance at the dish, however, Young has largely made up for it with elite defense and base running. Young has been in the 88th percentile when it comes to value on the basepaths this year according to Statcast even in spite of his league-leading four failed stolen base attempts. The defense has been nearly as good, as his +2 Outs Above Average leaves him tied for sixth among NL center fielders with other strong defenders like Brenton Doyle<\/a> and Johan Rojas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With James Wood<\/a> and Dylan Crews<\/a> in the outfield corners on a daily basis and Call posting a solid 114 wRC+ in part-time duty, Young may need to hit more in order to keep himself in the lineup on a regular basis in the long-term, particularly with prospect Robert Hassell III<\/a> beginning to hit at the Triple-A level this year. For now, however, the Nationals will surely content themselves with a quick return to action for their center fielder, given that the loss of Young would likely force Crews to slide over to center field on a more regular basis. With Crews scuffling badly at the plate himself to this point in the year, the Nats would surely prefer to avoid putting additional responsibilities on his plate at this point.<\/p>\n

More from around the NL East\u2026<\/p>\n

The Mets optioned infielder Ronny Mauricio<\/a> to Triple-A today after ending his rehab assignment at the Double-A level. As noted by Anthony DiComo of MLB.com<\/a>, the move is largely procedural in nature given that Mauricio was already in the minors. Mauricio missed the entire 2024 season after suffering a torn ACL during winter ball, and he\u2019s appeared in just ten games in the minors so far this year as he works his way back up to speed with five games at Single-A and five games at Double-A. Now, Mauricio is set to finish getting back into form with the club\u2019s Syracuse affiliate. Given he\u2019s hitting just .125\/.176\/.188 with a 35.9% strikeout rate so far this year, it\u2019s safe to say that Mauricio is still focused on recovery at this point and likely won\u2019t be a realistic big league option for the Mets for some time yet.
\nThe Marlins, meanwhile, have been without shortstop Xavier Edwards<\/a> in the lineup for two days now due to back soreness. Craig Mish of the Miami Herald<\/a> relayed today that, according to manager Clayton McCullough, Edwards underwent imaging that \u201ccame out OK\u201d\u00a0and that Edwards was slated to resume baseball activities today. It\u2019s unclear if Edwards is expected to return to the lineup tomorrow, but if a trip to the injured list is being considered that would be an ideal time to make a decision seeing as a hypothetical IL stint could be backdated due May 16 if it began tomorrow. Edwards was one of the club\u2019s better hitters in 70 games last year but has hit just .263\/.337\/.292 to this point in the 2025 campaign. Javier Sanoja<\/a> is filling in at shortstop while Edwards is out of commission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today\u2019s game between the Nationals\u00a0and the Orioles included a scary moment where Nats center fielder Jacob Young crashed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2398],"tags":[5,6287,4,415,4804,414,71,4222,6878],"class_list":{"0":"post-35371","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-nationals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-jacob-young","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-nationals","12":"tag-ronny-mauricio","13":"tag-washington","14":"tag-washington-nationals","15":"tag-washingtonnationals","16":"tag-xavier-edwards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114526743682287934","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}