Cavalli Named Opening Day Starter

Nats Chat

Mark Zuckerman & Al Galdi

Sports, Baseball

4.9 • 573 Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2026

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It is a busy time in Baseball as Spring Training continues alongside the popularity of the World Baseball Classic. Team USA is onto the quarterfinals amid very strong TV ratings. (04:30) The Nats just signed veteran starter Zack Littell, who surprisingly was available into March. The 30-year-old has a 3.88 career ERA and will immediately fit into the starting rotation, which has more experience than previously expected. Washington also inked starters Foster Griffin and Miles Mikolas after camp began in Florida. (15:00) Will Jake Irvin be in the rotation? (18:15) Cade Cavalli this week was given the ball for Opening Day on March 26th at Wrigley Field. Cavalli missed multiple seasons due to injury, but made ten starts to close out 2025. (24:15) What is Josiah Gray's timeline? He hasn't pitched in the majors since April 2024. (29:25) The Nationals have a new TV situation for this season and we help explain the steps to get you all set as a viewer (best we can). (43:40) A heartfelt goodbye to the "Secret Weapon" AKA Paolo Espino, who took the mound for the final time this month for Team Panama in the WBC. Espino will always be part of Nats Chat lore due to his performance in the 2021 season.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Walters is back for another season as the official bar of the Nats Chat podcast.
0:04.8	They've been with us since our very first season on air in 2021.
0:09.1	Walters is located just across the street from the ballpark.
0:15.9	Judge Singled his first time.
0:17.8	Harper with a good lead at first.
0:19.5	Strokes on the other way, back towards the law.
0:22.8	There it goes. Aaron Judge strikes first for team USA.
0:30.6	And welcome to Natch Chat, along with Washington Nationals insider Mark Zuckerman of Natch Journal.com.
0:36.1	I'm Al-Galdi host of the Al-Galdi podcast. We are recording this on Thursday afternoon, March 12th, two weeks before opening day. And we now know who the Nats starting pitcher for opening day will be. More on that in a bit. And also regarding Nats starting pitching, we have a new Nats starting pitcher, Zach Lattel, a guy on whom the Nats
0:55.1	have spent some money. A lot to get to on this installment of the podcast. Good to have you
0:59.4	with us on what is the only Nats podcast for which there is a new episode for the morning
1:03.4	after every Nats regular season game day. We during spring training are coming at you on a
1:08.5	once per week basis. This installment of Natch Chat is brought to us by
1:12.4	the newest album of the Natschat theme song composer Tim Newmark. An early reviewer describes
1:20.2	the album as packed with extremely deep emotions, kind of like episodes of this podcast. The album
1:26.9	is called Evolution. You can find it on all of
1:29.3	your favorite streaming platforms. Again, Evolution by the great Tim Newmark. We cheer on Team USA in the
1:36.1	World Baseball Classic. Big game Friday night at eight, the U.S. versus Canada in the quarterfinals.
1:41.2	And in case you're not aware of this, the ratings for Team USA in the
1:46.0	WBC, heck, the ratings overall in this WBC have been outstanding. Monster numbers, the USA victory
1:53.6	over Mexico on Monday night, 5.018 million viewers across Fox and Fox Deporte's most watched WBC telecast ever on any network.
2:07.0	Mark, people are into this WBC. The games have been really compelling. We've had a lot of
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