Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
Well that was fun. The Washington Nationals and the Marlins engaged in a good old fashioned slugfest in Miami tonight in front of a crowd large enough to maybe fill half of a kindergarten class. The fans that did show out, they got to see six home runs, four by the Nationals, and 22 runs in total. It was a 19-hit outburst by the Nationals’ offense that spurred them towards this game one victory, highlighted by a six-run fifth inning that put this one in firm control.
The scoring got underway in the top of the second as Luis Garcia Jr. led-off the frame with a long solo blast to right field on a hanging slider by Janson Junk. That gave the Nationals an early 1-0 lead, but it wouldn’t last long. Cade Cavalli didn’t have overpowering stuff tonight, and it showed. That being said, he was just good enough to get the job done and get the Nationals through five innings with the lead. He did surrender their first advantage in the bottom of the second, allowing an RBI single to Heriberto Hernandez to tie the score up at one apiece.
That score held until the top of the fourth when the Nats jumped ahead again, this time on an RBI single by Dylan Crews. That 2-1 lead stayed where it was until the offense exploded the very next inning. Janson Junk’s luck ran out completely in the fifth, as the Nationals got an RBI single from Josh Bell, another from Riley Adams, a sacrifice fly by Paul DeJong, and the big blow was a three-run homer off the bat of Dylan Crews. Just like that, Cade Cavalli took the mound in the bottom of the fifth with an 8-1 lead.
He did allow one run in the fifth on an RBI single by Xavier Edwards, but the next two hitters would ground out to finish off Cavalli’s day and he would leave the game in line for his third major league win.
- Cade Cavalli: 5 innings, 6 hits, 2 runs (2 earned), 1 walk, 1 strikeout, 61 pitches
- Janson Junk: 4.1 innings, 8 hits, 6 runs (6 earned), 2 walks, 3 strikeouts, 86 pitches
The Nats added even more insurance in the top of the sixth against the Miami bullpen. Josh Bell smacked the first of his two home runs on the night, this one a two-run shot, and later in the inning, Paul DeJong delivered an RBI single to extend the lead to 11-2.
That score held a grand total of one inning, as Josh Bell came up to bat again in the next frame, and did the exact same thing as he did in the sixth. His second two-run shot in as many innings increased the lead to 13-2, and officially turned this one into a laugher.
The Marlins did rally against Shinnosuke Ogasawara in the bottom of the eighth, getting an RBI single from Maximo Acosta, before Victor Mesa came through with his first major league home run, a three-run shot to make it a 13-6 ballgame.
As they did so many times this evening, the Nationals answered those runs scored by the Marlins, getting two in the ninth to make it to 15 on the game. RBI singles from James Wood and Josh Bell did the job for Washington, as they finished off one of their best offensive showings of the season.
Ogasawara allowed a leadoff homer to Jakob Marsee in the bottom of the ninth, but allowed no more damage, as the Nationals capped off a 15-7 win in game one of this four game series in Miami.
Positives tonight are mostly on the offensive side, I will commend Cavalli for the job he did tonight, I don’t love limiting him to 61 pitches when we could’ve seen some more length out of him but I do understand and more or less agree with the reasoning behind it. Orlando Ribalta also did a nice job tonight, giving the Nats two scoreless innings out of the bullpen to help bridge the game to Ogasawara. Josh Bell’s four-hit, 6 RBI night was the clubhouse leader from the Nationals’ offense, but they also got three-hit performances out of James Wood and Dylan Crews. Additionally, CJ Abrams, Riley Adams, and Luis Garcia contributed two hits apiece on a night where every starting position player recorded at least one hit.
Game two of this series will get underway tomorrow night at 6:40, the Nationals will send Mitchell Parker (7-15, 5.87 ERA) to the mound to face off against Adam Mazur (0-2, 5.74 ERA). Each of them made their last starts against these same teams, and neither was particularly dominant, so it will be interesting to see the adjustments they make to these hitters, and if either can improve their luck.
