Baseball will tear your heart out, and on this day, it was Chicago’s fans on the north-side who were stunned as the Nats scored five unanswered runs in the 9th inning to tag a blown save on the Cubs closer. The Nats exited Wrigley with a 6-3 win — and a series win.
Up until the 9th inning, the Nats amassed just one run, three hits, no walks, and a real lack of energy. Then the struggling Robert Hassell III cranked an oppo lead-off homer in the 9th inning on a three-quarter wedge swing. How it got out with the wind blowing in was a pleasant surprise. The next batter was CJ Abrams who got a room service single via a swinging bunt. All of a sudden, the Nats woke up. James Wood worked a 3-2 walk, and then Josh Bell pinch-hit for Riley Adams and cranked a 3-run homer that landed just over the wall in that homer basket for a 2-run lead. Daylen Lile then tripled, and Brady House hit his second Sac Fly of the game to give us the final score of a 6-3 Nants’ win.
On Sammy Sosa’s Cubs Hall of Fame Day, the home run hitter watched the Nats 9th inning homers to ruin the mood in Wrigley. They had to be ready to hoist their W flag for a win, and Jose A. Ferrer got the save to close-out the 9th inning in this game. With the Nats headed to the airport, they will have a happy flight to Miami.
Much credit to LHP Andrew Alvarez in his second MLB game as he wasn’t getting a low octane Marlins lineup like he had for his MLB debut. The Cubs made him work and Alvarez exited with 2-outs in the 5th inning and only 1-run surrendered. Unfortunately Clayton Beeter immediately gave up a single to allow an inherited runner to score on Alvarez’s record.
All considered, Alvarez’s only mistake was a fastball to Carson Kelly that wound up in the left field bleachers to put the Cubs up 1-0, and the Nats would tie it with House’s first Sac Fly of the game.
As aforementioned, that inherited run scored which has Alvarez so far with two runs on four hits over the first 9 2/3 innings of his career, and that is a 1.86 ERA. Not too shabby. Alvarez’s next start will be against Pittsburgh next weekend in Nats Park.
The Nats only have just 20-games remaining in this season and just six series starting with tomorrow’s 4-game series in Miami. The Nats have 58-wins at this point in the season, and now must go 5-15 or better to avoid 100-losses. A winning month of September should be the goal with 3 weeks remaining on this 2025 season. How close can the Nats get to the 72 wins that Vegas set for their Over/Under? Probably won’t happen as they would have to go 14-6 to get there.
Credit has to go to interim-manager Miguel Cairo to insert Bell as the pinch-hitter because Bell, like Hassell, had been in a deep slump. Bell’s 12-game slump had him batting a soft .176 with a .506 OPS and only one extra-base hit, a double, and no homers. To see Bell come off of the bench and hit that homer was the clutch the team needed to seal the deal, and was perhaps his biggest hit of his season.
Bell said after the game that he knew wasn’t starting, and he spoke to his mother who asked him to hit a homer today. He obliged with the 4th pinch-hit home run of his career.
“Off the bat, I thought it was way back, and then I got scared there for a little bit [with the wind blowing in]. I think that’s why you saw so much excitement as I’m running around. I think I’ve hit one, maybe two other balls in that basket, so it’s saved me a couple of times. But my heart definitely sank when I watched the center fielder gear up for jumping and robbing a homer there.”
— Bell said after the game
Did you know the Nationals lead the Majors with 77-runs scored in the 9th inning this season? That seems like silly talk for a last place team — but it is true. That is why Caio says his team never gives up, and after the game, Cairo said, “Like I’ve said before, they battle to the end.”
Not all smart moves work as pulling Alvarez for Beeter backfired to make the score 2-1. But credit to Cairo because the move should have worked as Beeter had been excellent recently, and the righty-righty matchup was the statistical move to make. Cairo often says, “You have to put players in their best situations to succeed.” Exactly. And the Bell move worked to perfection.
