In the same month that it appears the Nats’ opening day ace, MacKenzie Gore, is scuffling, another one has emerged in Brad Lord. He has been excellent since rejoining the starting rotation, and this afternoon was no exception. To save the day, Jose A. Ferrer entered with 1-out and bases loaded for the 5-out save to get the 4-2 win.
While Lord received some instant run support from the Nats’ other scuffling All-Star, James Wood led off the game with a solo homer off Carson Whisenhunt and added an RBI double later. You know the stat that the Nats usually win when Wood has an RBI in a game.
This was just the second game since interim-manager Miguel Cairo moved Wood to the lead-off spot, but he’s shown promising signs in both games of maybe getting back to his old self.
As Lord breezed through the first two frames, the Nats’ offense picked him up again in the top of the third. Paul DeJong and Josh Bell swatted back-to-back solo shots to extend the Washington lead to 3-0. The score would remain 3-0 into the middle innings as Lord had to navigate some traffic on the bases a couple times, but remained unscathed through five innings. James Wood struck again in the top half of the sixth against the San Francisco bullpen, this time smacking a line drive RBI double to make it a 4-0 game as Daylen Lile came in to score.
The Giants finally got to Brad in the bottom of the sixth, Rafael Devers led off the frame with a solo homer to make it a 4-1 game. Lord buckled back in though, and got the next three batters out to finish off six stellar innings and hand the Nats’ bullpen a lead.
- Brad Lord: 6 innings, 4 hits, 1 run (1 earned), 2 walks, 5 strikeouts, 86 pitches
- Carson Whisenhunt: 4 innings, 5 hits, 3 runs (3 earned), 3 walks, 5 strikeouts, 78 pitches
The Nats’ bullpen has been nothing short of a circus show this season, and today was no different. Konnor Pilkington got them cleanly through the bottom of the seventh, then Cole Henry gave us all a heart attack by loading the bases with one out in the eighth. Jose A. Ferrer came in and allowed a sacrifice fly to Wilmer Flores making it 4-2, then he blew a 99 mph sinker by Matt Chapman to end the inning with no further damage.
Ferrer came back out for the ninth and handled business, putting up a scoreless frame despite two baserunners to finish off the five out save, and a nice win for the Nats on the West coast. That was Ferrer’s second save of his career.
Positives from this afternoon on the pitching end were Brad Lord with his excellent start, Pilkington’s scoreless seventh, and Ferrer’s five out save to hang onto the lead and finish off the win. Offensively, James Wood, Josh Bell, and Paul DeJong were not only the three home run hitters today, but they were also the three multi-hit performers for the Nats in this one and tallied all four the RBIs.
“It was a good team win. … Today they played together and made good plays. They hit well, and pitched well. … [Lord] is going to be a good starter for a long long time. … I put them in their best position to succeed.”
— Cairo said after the game.
The series will conclude tomorrow afternoon at 4:05 with a really intriguing pitching matchup. MacKenzie Gore (4-12, 4.29 ERA) desperately needs a good start to give him a step back to what he was earlier in the year, he’ll be facing Justin Verlander (1-8, 4.29 ERA) who comes in with the exact same ERA as MacKenzie, and the same sort of bad luck when it comes to wins and losses. Now usually I’d make a deal about the Nats having their ace on the mound for a rubber match but I feel like that’s been the case in a lot of Gore’s recent outings, and it never seems to go very well so I won’t. The Nats desperately need him to get back to his old self tomorrow, not just to give them a shot at winning, but to give Mackenzie a shot to salvage his season.
