Every Nationals win seems to have that hold your breath moment. Last night’s 4-3 win in Baltimore had almost every emotion with the same great, good, bad, and ugly elements. Wins seem to make you forget about the three grounders that José Tena bungled (two were ruled hits), and celebrate the Tena hustle that erupted into the game-winning run when he came around from second base to score on an infield single. He must have watched the 2015 World Series for inspiration. We can forget about Nasim Nuñez chasing a pitch way out of the zone that would have been a ball-4 and a fielding mistake, because Nuñez hustled to first base for a single to make it possible for Tena to score.
All game, Nuñez was bringing the energy as he had a stolen base earlier in the game and kept going to third base as the ball got away from Baltimore’s catcher who just jogged after it — and Nuñez took advantage, taking third base with is top-2 percent speed. We all know speed kills.
One thing for sure, Nuñez brings that energy and something he calls Aura Farming. An offseason workout partner with James Wood, what can you say about how that duo shaped this game. Wood had an RBI single to score Nuñez early in the game, and then added a solo home run. That’s how two-of-the-four Nats’ runs scored plus the Tena/Nuñez play, and the other run was scored on a Nathaniel Lowe solo home run. The only other hit of the game was from Jacob Young, and his biggest contribution of the game was skying over the center field wall for an incredible home run robbery.
Besides Wood and Lowe, there wasn’t a player in the Nats’ lineup who didn’t have a noticeable mistake. The Nats overcame many slipups, but the Orioles had far more. They had 14 hits to the Nats five, but it was their lack of clutch coupled with mistakes that lost them the game.
The paid attendance was 21,171, but maybe half showed up because of the extreme thunderstorms, hail, and winds in the pregame. After a 12-minute delay, the game was played in good weather.
Starter MacKenzie Gore had nine strikeouts in his 3⅔ innings where the unlucky BABIP was .833 against him. Gore had 22 swing & misses in the game on a total of 60 swings in a combo from primarily his slider, four-seam fastball, curveball and one on his cutter. That’s his second-most swing & misses in a game this season. But the contact he gave up was mostly hard and not where his defense was positioned. All but two balls in-play were caught, including the first contact of the game on a diving catch by Nuñez and the home run robbery by Young. The game of inches will often tear your heart out, but it evened out in the end when Nuñez was safe by inches on that infield single.
When Gore exited the game in the fourth inning with the bases loaded, in came rookie, Cole Henry, to strikeout the batter and strand all three runners. That was it for Henry, a true fireman performance on this day. If not for a Tena error, the bullpen gave up no earned runs in their 5⅓ innings of work. What a job by the bullpen. There were moments of bad ball/strike calls, a missed check-swing that should have been a strikeout for Gore, and some other parts of the game that have to get better. Again, the team win wiped away the transgressions.
“These guys had heart today. … They had a lot of energy. They wanted it.”
— manager Dave Martinez
Closer Kyle Finnegan once again gave up a lead-off single from an 0-2 count with three of the same pitches in the similar locations. We saw that two weeks ago in Philadelphia to Alec Bohm. Why?!? Fortunately the base runner was caught stealing on a strike ’em out throw ’em out double play.
And the final out of the day, was by Nuñez who was switched from second base to play center field for the first time since some reps in Spring Training — and when he was a young kid. Officially, this was the first time in a game for the career infielder, and he celebrated the win with emotion.
“The team meeting …”
— Nasim Nuñez covered everything from the team meeting mid-week in Atlanta and the need to ratchet up the energy
“We learned something out of this win. I believe a lot of guys are starting to realize we got to play with that swagger. We got to go out there, we got to understand that we belong here. … I hope that everybody picks up on that message.”
“I’ve got to get there before him. Plain and simple, we needed baserunners. We had life. We just needed to do something, anything, and it worked out.”
This team has a lot of quiet types, and just like the Nats’ 2019 team, you need the opposites that attract. Wood to Nuñez, CJ Abrams to Lowe, Gore to Jake Irvin. Yin to yang. A little more swagger.
