The Washington Nationals picked up tonight right where they left off in Milwaukee on Sunday, with another pitiful offensive performance, laced with comical miscues and dumbfounding base running. All topped off by another trademarked Kyle Finnegan ninth inning collapse. Now that that’s out of the way, here’s how it happened.
Dylan Cease may begin making appearances in my nightmares. Mark Zuckerman tweeted out after Cease had been pulled, his updated career stat line against the Nationals: 21.1 innings, 5 hits, 0 runs, 5 walks, 28 strikeouts, and a no-hitter. Folks, that’s ownage at its highest level.
Mike Soroka was able to dance around danger on multiple occasions tonight, despite the Padres drawing first blood on a sacrifice fly by Jake Cronenworth in the top of the second. Soroka would buckle down and strand a runner on third base, escaping the inning down just 1-0.
That would be the last of the damage against either starter, with Soroka and Cease trading zeroes back and forth into the middle innings. For Soroka, tonight marked a nice bounce back out of the break after some rough outings heading into this start.
- Dylan Cease: 5.1 innings, 4 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 10 strikeouts, 94 pitches
- Michael Soroka: 5 innings, 3 hits, 1 run (1 earned), 2 walks, 3 strikeouts, 85 pitches
The Padres doubled their lead in the top half of the seventh, as Xander Bogaerts came in to score on a nice bunt laid down by Elias Diaz. The score would hold at 2-0 until the bottom of the eighth when the Nationals’ offense finally decided to return from the break. Jason Adam hung a 2-2 changeup right down the middle to CJ Abrams, who didn’t miss one bit of it. With one swing, he tied the game with a 428 foot bomb to right-center. Unfortunately, then Kyle Finnegan entered.
I am the biggest fan of Finnegan as any, I think what he’s endured and done in his time in DC is very impressive, and I’ll appreciate him forever. But man, when he collapses, there’s no picking him back up. The Padres took a 3-2 lead on another sac bunt by Diaz, and then this game was busted wide open thanks to a grand slam by Manny Machado. Just like his last appearance in Milwaukee, Finnegan got just one out, and tonight allowed five runs. The Nats made some loud contact in the bottom of the ninth, but ultimately went down quietly, losing this one 7-2.
Talking about positives from tonight seems kind of silly, but nobody else is going to so I will. Soroka’s outing, as I mentioned before, was a good bounce back performance from his last couple. This isn’t necessarily a positive, but I did want to note that Miguel Cairo managed to use all seven relievers in his bullpen over the final four innings of this game. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that before. Cairo got scoreless appearances tonight from Mason Thompson, Andrew Chafin, Luis Garcia, Cole Henry, and Jackson Rutledge.
Offensively, Josh Bell, Nathaniel Lowe, and Jacob Young all had multi-hit games tonight. But Bell took himself off of the bases twice. Important also to note, definitely not a positive, but James Wood just hasn’t been good at the plate over the past couple weeks. I had hoped a break would help him reset but he continued to struggle mightily tonight, the Nats are going to need him to find it if they want to get out of this rut. Everyone had hits except for Wood, Daylen Lile, and Riley Adams.
The Cairo postgame presser was filled with excuses to the media. He promised before the game that their would be accountability, and you have to wonder if he will be a man of his word. He actually said Finnegan pitched well except one pitch. Well, he sure didn’t miss bats giving up five runs in the 9th inning. Maybe he was BABIP’d. Certainly not on the grand slam that put the game out of reach from what should have been a 2-2 tie.
“All we ask is to keep us in the game, and this is what can happen,” Cairo said. “CJ hit that two-run homer. It’s kind of nice to see that they’re battling. They’re playing hard. And that’s all I can ask. Of course we need to get better on the bases and on defense.”
Game two of this series will get going tomorrow at 6:45. Mitchell Parker (5-10, 5.12 ERA) had an excellent outing in San Diego against these Padres just a month ago, but has really not been good his last few times out. He’ll need to regain his rhythm tomorrow night if the Nats want any chance against Yu Darvish (0-1, 6.48 ERA) who is still working his way back from an injury that held him out until a couple weeks ago. Something has to change for this team, and soon. Unfortunately it looks like with the trade deadline fast approaching, the only changes are going to be by subtraction.
