It was a sparse crowd of 11,370 on a rainy Monday night at Nats Park for Brady House‘s major league debut, and the team’s recent performance showed why. Following a disastrous weekend at home getting swept by the Marlins, there was hope that the arrival of one of the Nats’ top prospects would bring some much-needed juice to the ball club ahead of a four-game set against the last-place Colorado Rockies. That was far from the case.
Starter Jake Irvin continued his run of first inning woes, surrendering a two-run homer to Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman in the opening frame on a chase pitch off the outside edge; more from him to come later in this article. This furthered a trend for Irvin, who this season carries a 10.80 ERA in the first inning and every inning after that has pitched to a 2.77 ERA. Opposing him tonight for the Rockies was rookie left hander Carson Palmquist, making his sixth big league start, and entered tonight with a record of 0-4 and a 7.77 ERA.
The Rockies’ lefty kept the Nats off the scoreboard until the fourth inning tonight when Amed Rosario scored CJ Abrams on a sacrifice fly to left field to cut the deficit in half at 2-1. The Rockies would get that run right back in the top half of the fifth thanks to an RBI single from Michael Toglia to plate Mickey Moniak, another character that we’ll hear from again later in this article.
The bottom half of the fifth inning saw the highlight of the night for the Nationals, and what some people, myself included, thought could be the beginning of a runaway Nats victory as rookie Daylen Lile sent a ball to the upper deck in right field for his first homer as a big leaguer, cutting the Colorado lead to 3-2. That was soon followed by James Wood going opposite field into the flower boxes in left with a two-run shot to give the Nationals their first and only lead of the night at 4-3.
“We played really well. … When you get a chance to put your closer in for the ninth [inning], that’s what you want. Today, we just came out on the wrong side of the field. I’m excited about the way the kids played. … Those guys are going to be all right. They’ll help us win games. This was a tough one.”
— manager Dave Martinez said after the game
That’s where it would remain through the middle innings; by the end of the sixth inning, both starters had exited the game. Their final lines were as follows:
- Carson Palmquist: 4.2 Innings, 4 hits, 4 runs (all earned), 3 walks, 2 strikeouts, 89 pitches
- Jake Irvin: 6 innings, 5 hits, 3 runs (all earned), 1 walk, 5 strikeouts, 91 pitches
Both bullpens held strong through the eighth inning. For the Nats, Brad Lord came out first and was excellent. He got through the seventh and eighth while facing the minimum of six batters, striking out two of them and only needing 22 pitches to do it. Unfortunately for the good guys, the Colorado bullpen came to play tonight. A three-man effort of Juan Mejia, Jimmy Herget, and Victor Vodnik got the Rox through the eighth without allowing a hit over their combined 3.1 innings of work, and the score remained 4-3 in Washington’s favor headed to the ninth.
Of course we all know who’s coming in to close a game up by one run (with the lone exception being Jorge Lopez that one time), and sure enough, it was Kyle Finnegan tasked with getting the final three outs and snapping the abysmal eight-game losing streak. Remember earlier in this article where I mentioned we’d hear more from Hunter Goodman and Mickey Moniak? Unfortunately, now is that time.
As is usually the case with Finnegan, he’s either got it or he really doesn’t. He wasted no time showing us what he had tonight as Hunter Goodman took a 3-1 fastball and deposited it over the center field wall to tie the score, then later in the inning, Moniak got an opportunity with a runner on second base and two outs, and he too gave a fastball a ride straight over the fence to give Colorado the 6-4 advantage and a batter later Finnegan ended the inning to cap off a rough night for him.
A leadoff walk worked by Luis Garcia Jr. was eliminated by a tough luck double play ball scalded at 98.7 mph by Brady House. Then the game ended on a groundout to first by pinch hitter Josh Bell. That would finish it off and give Rockies’ closer Seth Halvorsen his fourth save of the season.
Extremely disappointing performance as a whole tonight, didn’t feel like there was much juice in the Nats dugout, whether that could have anything to do with the recent controversy surrounding Davey Martinez is anyone’s guess but ultimately should not result in four straight losses to Miami and Colorado regardless of anything going on in the locker room.
On the brighter side of things, Brady House looked very good at third base tonight, made every opportunity look routine and capped his night at the plate with a six pitch walk in the fourth and though the result wasn’t what we wanted his double play ball in the ninth was an eight pitch at-bat and he turned around a 101 mph fastball and hit a 99 mph exit velocity rocket to second. In other bright spots tonight, James Wood was on base three times, going 2-3 with a double and a walk, obviously Daylen Lile’s first career homer was a great moment, Jake Irvin did a good job of battling after that rough first inning to turn in a good start, and Brad Lord continues to be nails out of the pen.
The best news of all is that there’s still always tomorrow. Game two of this series is scheduled for tomorrow night at 6:45. The Nationals have Mike Soroka (3-4, 5.14 ERA) scheduled to throw against Rockies right-hander Antonio Senzatela, who is just 1-10 this season with a 7.23 ERA, that one win coming against, guess who?? The Nats. Senzatela went 6 innings of one-run ball against the Nats on April 20th in Colorado, so let’s see if the bats can come alive tomorrow night and help out Soroka to end this losing skid.
