The Miguel Cairo-led era of Nationals baseball began tonight, in quite uneventful fashion. The Cardinals, while it wasn’t an overly impressive performance from their offense, put on a pitching clinic tonight thanks to Sonny Gray and a gaggle of relief arms. This one, while close throughout, never really felt like it was in doubt once St. Louis took the lead, a testament to the effectiveness of their pitching staff.
The two starters traded zeroes over the first two frames, not missing a beat despite the rain delay lasting over two hours. The Nats got a two-out double from Brady House in the second as their only base runner in those first two innings, but would strand him there. Jake Irvin was on the wrong end of a tight strike zone for most of his outing, including in the second inning, where he surrendered two walks but neither came in to score.
The Nationals broke the scoreless tie in the top of the third on a James Wood RBI single, bringing in Jacob Young. Luis Garcia would double that lead in the next at-bat, driving in CJ Abrams to score on a ground out, and just like that, the Nats had a 2-0 lead. That lead was gone two batters into the bottom of the third.
A leadoff double from Victor Scott led right into a two-run homer by Brendan Donovan to tie it up. To make matters worse, the next batter, Masyn Winn, got on with a single and was then brought in on an RBI double from Alec Burleson. So in the span of four batters, the Cards amassed four straight hits and three runs to take a 3-2 lead.
The Nats threatened in the top half of the fourth, a double from Josh Bell and a single from Daylen Lile had them on first and third with one out. Unfortunately, Riley Adams took care of that by grounding into a 5-4-3 double play to end the inning and escape the threat. Those would be the last base runners Sonny Gray allowed tonight, as he was pulled after five good innings at only 70 pitches. There was no apparent injury concern, so it may have been matchup-related or possibly had something to do with the long rain delay and its effect on his body.
Jake Irvin did a good job of settling down from that rough third inning and was one out away from completing six innings of three-run ball until he hung a changeup and Lars Nootbaar deposited it just barely over the right field fence for a solo shot. This gave St. Louis a 4-2 lead, which would ultimately be the final score.
- Jake Irvin: 6 innings, 6 hits, 4 runs (all earned), 4 walks, 3 strikeouts, 98 pitches
- Sonny Gray: 5 innings, 5 hits, 2 runs (both earned), 1 walk, 6 strikeouts, 70 pitches
The bullpens tonight were excellent; the Cardinals got four scoreless from theirs, the Nats two scoreless from theirs. Washington did have their opportunities late, Jacob Young stood at the plate in the top of the ninth with the tying run on first and two outs, but could not do the job against Cardinals’ closer Ryan Helsley.
Positives from tonight, the Nats got scoreless appearances from Andrew Chafin and Mason Thompson out of the bullpen. Thompson looked much sharper in this, his second outing since returning, than he did in his first. If he can turn out to be a key contributor, it would be a huge lift to this struggling and already taxed bullpen. Offensively, CJ Abrams was the only National to record a multi-hit game, but Daylen Lile extended his hitting streak to an impressive 14 games, currently the longest such streak in the bigs.
Not unusual for a team whose leader was just fired, the Nats just looked lethargic and flat tonight. We’ve gotten used to watching them go about their business without a whole lot of urgency or energy, but tonight the lack of juice was very apparent. It’s hard to blame them. Miguel Cairo was even in tears during his pregame interviews, while it may have been time for a change at the helm, we’re still dealing with real-life people with very real connections and emotions. Cairo in particular talked about his extremely close relationship with Martinez, mentioning they’ve known each other since he was 21 years old. Cairo even said of Davey, “he’s like a father to me.” These are difficult and unusual times, but for the sake of the young guys on the roster, there has to be that same emphasis on winning each day the rest of the season as we try to maximize their development over this season.
Game two of this series will get going Wednesday night at 7:45. Mackenzie Gore (3-8, 3.11 ERA) got an extra day of rest ahead of this one and should be ready to go for his final start before the All-Star break. He will be opposed by Andre Pallante (5-4, 4.10 ERA), who was originally scheduled to oppose Irvin tonight, but was also given the extra day of rest and moved to game two. Let’s hope the Nats can ride the arm of Gore to deliver Miguel Cairo his first managerial win tomorrow night.
