Does that read like a football headline? It should, you rarely win with four turnovers, yet the Washington Nationals did despite some crucial mistakes.
Photo by Marlene Koenig/TalkNats
With this Opening Day win, that was the Washington Nationals’ first since 2021 against the Atlanta Braves, and their first road Opening Day win in eight years when the Nats won in Cincinnati. Blake Butera became the fifth manager in Nats history to win his inaugural Opening Day game. Those other four managers were Dave Martinez (2018), Dusty Baker (2016), Matt Williams (2014) and Davey Johnson (2012). And three of those four managers all went to the playoffs in their first year — the only one who did not was Martinez, who won the World Series in his second year.
Maybe what sets Butera, 33, apart from the rest was the way he managed that first game. He made brilliant maneuvers and did more with less. His four predecessors all had stacked teams. He didn’t have Stephen Strasburg or Max Scherzer or Jordan Zimmermann or Gio Gonzalez to choose from as his Opening Day starter like those other managers had. Butera didn’t have one player making over a 7-digit salary like those other managers. Butera had 10 players on his roster who had never been on an Opening Day roster. The oldest position player on Butera’s roster is the back-up catcher, Drew Millas, who is just 28 years old.
It was a game of firsts that included Cade Cavalli‘s first Opening Day that coincided with his first Opening Day start. This was also the first Opening Day for President of Baseball Operations, Paul Toboni, and much of their coaches who were new to an MLB dugout.
As bad as the Nats’ offense had looked in Spring Training, except for Brady House, was like the polar opposite in the Opening Day win. The Nats exploded for 10-runs yesterday which was two more runs than the team scored in their previous seven games. I kid you not. This is the Nats team that was the worst by far in Spring Training with a .194 batting average and a .592 OPS. On average, the team as a whole batted below the Mendoza line. That is hard to do.
The Nats turned on the power yesterday and bashed three homers of which two were from unlikely outfielders: Jacob Young and Joey Wiemer. While Young flipped a switch in Spring Training where he was lacing balls at 100+ mph, he was driving them all into the ground. Yesterday, he hit them in the air and they carried. He probably would have had two homers if the wind wasn’t gusting in. His one grounder, ruled a single and later changed to an error, had some crazy spin that hopped up at the last moment. Wiemer had three hits in the game and two were grounders that bounced off of homeplate.
Some of the Nats 11 hits had the BABIP luck, but plenty of baseballs put in-play were unlucky due to the winds that blew back probably three and maybe four homers. If we told you that James Wood went 0-5 with 4 strikeouts, you would think the Nats took a loss, but every other Nats starter got at least one hit except for Nasim Nunez who actually reached first base twice via a walk and hit-by-pitch. Nunez will take a .500 OBP.
While we celebrate the win, you can’t excuse the four turnovers. You already knew that Andres Chaparro can’t backhand balls in the dirt, so no surprise that two of them got by him, and he didn’t even get a glove on either. Add to that a backhand grounder he didn’t get to (not a turnover), and you have to wonder how the team can play him another game at first base. Then you had Wiemer with bad judgment trying to go to second base after an infield single, and he was thrown out by a mile. That’s three of the four turnovers.
The fourth turnover was the most egregious and controversial. CJ Abrams “pimped” a single during a game where the wind was gusting at times at 3o+ mph and blowing straight in from right field. By the 4th inning, Abrams should have known that the wind was shaving about 40 feet off your distance on high flyballs. Yet Abrams crushed a ball, and stood there, and admired his work, and someone timed him at 3-seconds before he actually began to run. He would have been out by a country mile if the outfielder’s throw went directly into second base instead of a cut-off for a possible play at home. Then the team burned a challenge because Abrams tried to say he was safe.
These things happen. We saw Ronald Acuna Jr. do it and his manager benched him. So both Toboni and Butera started their employment by preaching accountability — and Butera going so far as saying he expects a Hard-90 which means no dogging it to first base. “Control the controllables” as Butera said.
But nobody asked Butera about this in the postgame presser. Winning is great, but in the first game of Butera and Toboni’s career — they have an accountability issue. And while some would say “Chill Out — Don’t Be a Debbie Downer,” come on, this was the campaign that Toboni and Butera ran on. They were going to clean up a Martinez system that was wrought of this type of stench. But Abrams remained in the game, and was actually seen laughing it up with Wood in the dugout.
For anyone who has read my writings, I have been accused of being too easy on Abrams. A player who I suggested after his rookie season should be extended. A player who impressed me with his raw tools. I thought he would grow out of his immaturity and his me-me-me style of pounding his chest — and that is literal not figurative. We also heard Toboni give speeches about playing with humility, and playing for team over self. Well guys, you have a problem. Fix it.
“I’m excited and happy for the group. … Obviously there’s still 161 more, but [I am] happy to get off on the right footing. You envision yourself over-and-over winning that first game and what that’s going to look like and feel like, and all those things, but until you’re there, and it actually happens and you see just how happy the guys are, how fired up everybody was, and how well they played, too, it’s way better than you can imagine.”
— Butera said after the win
Credit to Butera for some brilliant strategic managing. He pulled Cavalli at the right point at 75 pitches in the 4th inning. He maneuvered relievers in-and-out, and even pulled the defensively strained Chaparro for Luis Garcia Jr. in the mid-game. The lineup that many on social media pounded him for — came up huge.
There was so much good in this game, that we should be writing five more paragraphs on House’s diving play, 10 offensive runs scored, a key ABS challenge by Keibert Ruiz, and brilliant bullpen work that only allowed 1-run in 5 1/3 innings of work. Yes, celebrate that Curly W.
