The Nats bounced back strong from last night’s frustrating finish with a win that we can all be thankful for. It’s not been often this season where I’ve left a game against one of the better teams in the majors thinking, “that was nine innings of well played baseball on both sides,” but tonight is one of those nights. The pitching did a great job of holding a fierce lineup quiet, and the offense did just enough against that stout San Diego pitching staff. The large crow of 31,136 got to see No. 1 draft pick Eli Willits make an appearance at the stadium and see a well-played Nats win.
The Nats jumped out on top in the bottom of the second inning thanks to a two-out rally, capped by a two-run single by Drew Millas to give the Nats an early 2-0 lead. That lead did not last long, as the Padres responded in the top half of the third with the only damage they did the whole night, via an RBI double by Martin Maldonado, and then the game was tied on an RBI single by Luis Arraez. The Nats snagged the lead against Darvish in the bottom of the fifth thanks to an RBI groundout by CJ Abrams to make it 3-2.
The Nationals’ starter, Mitchell Parker, was excellent tonight, just as he was a month ago against these same Padres, matching San Diego starter Yu Darvish into the middle innings and then leaving with a lead. Manager Miguel Cairo pulled Parker at 82-pitches with 6.0 innings complete, and it worked. The bullpen threw a 3.0 inning shutout with Luis Garcia, Jose A. Ferrer, and Kyle Finnegan all coming up big.
One things we saw tonight was that Parker had changed up his game plan with Millas on how they would pitch this game. They added a few sliders against the right-handed pitchers and it worked.
“We used the extended time between starts to kind of figure out things that we had to work on.”
— Parker said after the game
The Nats offense would strike again in the bottom of the sixth as Nathaniel Lowe turned around a fastball from Yuki Matsui and deposited it over the center field fence to double the lead, making it 4-2 Washington. That score would hold, as the Nats got another very solid night from the bullpen, including a much needed bounce back outing from Finnegan, as he, Garcia, and Ferrer took the ball from Parker and did an excellent job of bringing this one home. It was a big week for Parker who took to social media that he and his wife are expecting their first child this winter.
- Yu Darvish: 5 innings, 5 hits, 3 runs (all earned), 1 walk, 1 strikeout, 69 pitches
- Mitchell Parker: 6 innings, 5 hits, 2 runs (both earned), 1 walk, 4 strikeouts, 82 pitches
Positives tonight, the whole pitching staff, Mitchell Parker, Luis Garcia, Jose A. Ferrer, and Kyle Finnegan were all great tonight. Minus the horrific ninth inning from Finnegan last night, the Nats’ bullpen has thrown six innings of one-run ball so far in this weekend’s series. Offensively, Josh Bell, Nathaniel Lowe, Brady House, Daylen and Jacob Young all had a good night, and it was Drew Millas with the big 2-RBI single. An important note, Bell‘s batting average is up to a shocking .220 after being well under .200 for the first three months of the season. There would have been more hits,
The Nats have a chance to win a series against a very good team tomorrow, and they’ve got the right guy on the mound to do it. MacKenzie Gore (4-8, 3.02 ERA), fresh off his first All-Star game, will get the ball in a rematch of the rubber game a month ago in San Diego against Nick Pivetta (9-2, 2.88 ERA). Pivetta in that game threw seven shutout innings against the Nats to give San Diego the series win. Tomorrow’s rubber match will get underway at 1:35, a great opportunity for the Nats to open the post-All Star break schedule with a huge series win.
