You can’t walk-off on your opponent in a road game, but the Washington Nationals strolled-off the field with a wild win against first place Seattle with seven runs in the 10th inning to win the series against the Mariners. The Nats scored 18-runs combined on Wednesday and Thursday while holding the Mariners to just three runs. The Nats starters gave up ZERO.
As hosts, the Mariners did not accommodate the visitors with an early start time, and with the late extra innings game and a delay of the flight, the Nationals arrived in Arizona at 2:32 AM (local time) and 5:32 AM converted to D.C. time. The Nats got tucked into their bed at their hotel at just after 3:15 AM when it was past sunrise already overlooking Nationals Park. But when you win like the Nats did, and so many struggling Nats contributed in this game, the adrenaline rush might keep you up anyway.
Tonight’s Nats game has a 6:40 PM local start time, and for those in the DMV, that would be 9:40 PM for you. Hopefully, the Nats can get plenty of rest. Same for the fans who stayed up late and were treated to an exciting win. From a pitcher’s duel to some heated arguments with the homeplate ump to a nail-biter of a 9th inning that led to extra innings, this game will become a MASN insta-classic to be shown in re-runs in the offseason.
Those seven runs scored in the 10th inning were the most runs scored in an extra inning in franchise history as well as the most scored in MLB this season in an extra inning.
“It says a lot about this group, especially the young guys. They’re getting to see the taste of what it takes to win ballgames, especially close games, which is great for them.”
— manager Dave Martinez said.
For Robert Hassell III and Daylen Lile, they are in their first week of MLB life. Maybe Hassell thinks this is the norm as he scored the winning run in a walk-off in his MLB debut game last week. No, games like this just don’t happen often. Again, that is the most runs ever scored by the Nationals in an extra inning. Lile started off the scoring with a 369 foot sacrifice fly. That smash would have been a home run in Yankee Stadium, Steinbrenner Field, the Great American Small Ball Park, and Citizens Bank Field.
Lile was a few feet from his first career home run. His teammates were relentless on the reliever who was serving up meatballs. Both CJ Abrams and Luis Garcia Jr. got extra base hits off of him near the spot where Lile’s ball was caught. And Josh Bell put the exclamation point on that 10th inning with a 386 foot 3-run homer that was actually shorter in distance than Abrams and Garcia’s doubles. A lesson to Lile, it’s all about location, location, location.
“Everybody had to play well. Everybody had a piece in the win. Just gritty and tough. I think that’s how we’ve been playing, and that’s how you have to play in this league if you want to win.”
— starter MacKenzie Gore said
A lot of credit to Gore who exited with a gem of 6-innings and no runs, no walks, and only four hits. He had eight strikeouts pushing him over 500 for his young career, and the first pitcher in 2025 with 100 strikeouts. Gore was in-line for the win with a 2-0 lead thanks to a James Wood clutch double in the top of that 6th inning. But the Mariners took advantage of some horrific umpiring at the expense of Nats’ reliever Jorge Lopez who went after the umpire. Fortunately, catcher Keibert Ruiz kept homeplate ump Andy Fletcher from ejecting Lopez like he did earlier in the game with J.P. Crawford. Instead of Martinez getting in the middle, he just sauntered out to the mound to calm down Lopez who ended up succumbing to the bad calls and gave up two runs and was collared with the blown save.
Nats’ players are used to outrageous calls for balls/strikes. Obviously Crawford wasn’t going to take it. His expletive-filled verbal attack on Fletcher had to broken up by Crawford’s manager and the other umps who tried to defuse it. But the bad calls continued and that ruined Lopez’s night. Some of it was on the poor catching skills of Keibert Ruiz who is ranked DEAD LAST in MLB this season. In fact, he is also the worst pitch blocker on balls in the dirt, and has the most wild pitches on his record. Umps will tell you off the record that they miss real strikes when catchers move legitimate strikes out of the zone with their mitt in essentially an “unframed” pitch. Ruiz’s poor defense is an ongoing issue that must be addressed.
Speaking of bad defense, two of the four hits on Gore’s record came in that 6th inning on groundballs hit near Abrams and Garcia with xBA’s of .340 and .220 respectively. Both were hit hard taking away reaction time, but good fielders get to those. Gore skillfully worked around the trouble and struck out three batters to strand the bases loaded.
While Gore didn’t get the win on his record, it was a team win, and the type of win that some said felt like a 2019 win. Come on, is there enough magic to take this 26-30 Nats team to a Wild Card? BaseballReference.com has the Nats odds of a playoff berth at 0.1 percent. So you’re saying there’s a chance! By the way, the 2019 Nats were 24-32 on this same day. They had a superior roster, and one of the best starting rotations in baseball. This Nats team is young and hungry. Maybe they are too naive to know they shouldn’t be winning these types of game. That naivete might work in their favor.
The next few series will also be tough with Arizona starting tonight for this weekend series, then back home against the Cubs and Rangers. After that, a quick road trip with the Mets before returning home against the Marlins and Rockies. The end of June west coast road trip to Los Angeles and San Diego will probably tell us who this team really is just like last year’s trip to San Diego.
Most of these current Nats weren’t around last year for that San Diego series, maybe that’s a good thing because the Nats entered that series just 1-game under .500 and visions of grandeur. They left SoCal knowing that they blew a golden opportunity. Before this season, Martinez and general manager Mike Rizzo said that this season would be about winning.
The current 9-4 record in the past 2 weeks is impressive. Can the Nats keep up this pace going forward? They don’t want to hear about the July trade deadline or the rebuild. But the only way to change that mindset is by actually winning and getting over .500 on the season. These next 30-games, that will take this team into July, will be the tell as they enter the summer months.
“The message is clear: ‘Let’s play meaningful games in September.’ … They want to win. I’ve heard throughout the past few years: ‘You guys are coming. You guys are coming.’ I don’t want to here that anymore. We’re here and going to go out there and compete.”
— Martinez said when Spring Training camp opened this year
Your record will tell you who they really are.
