The Nats honestly just got outclassed this afternoon in what was the rubber game of this three-game series that began so positively on Monday night with that thrilling comeback win. After that, it only dropped off from there, with the very disappointing blown lead last night, and another bullpen disaster class today. I’ve really run out of words for this Nationals’ bullpen, now obviously, in a 6-1 game, they’re not getting any help from the offense, but they sure didn’t help themselves one bit. One night removed from walking ten batters in a game, they followed that performance up by walking another eight in this one. If you factor Monday’s game in, the Nationals averaged eight walks a game over this series; that is absolutely abysmal and has to change.
The Action
The game got underway with Miles Mikolas immediately in a jam, and after last week’s start of his against the Dodgers, I’m not sure that did anything to help the nerves of Nats’ fans. He was able to get out of it unscathed, thankfully, stranding the bases loaded to begin the ballgame. Unfortunately, Cardinals’ starter Michael McGreevy had to do a similar job in the bottom half of the first after James Wood and Luis Garcia led off the inning with back-to-back singles. McGreevy bore down and was able to retire the next three batters in order, and we exited the first inning scoreless despite both starters walking the tightrope.
It didn’t remain scoreless long, as Mikolas got himself into trouble once again in the top of the second inning. For the second straight inning, St. Louis loaded the bases with two outs, and this time they cashed in on a two-run single by Alec Burleson to jump out to a 2-0 lead.
The Nats responded in the bottom of the third, after Mikolas tossed a scoreless top half. Back-to-back singles to lead off the inning put Luis Garcia in a great RBI situation, and he cashed in, driving in Jacob Young from third on a groundout. That cut the Cards’ lead in half to 2-1, and one batter later, the inning was snuffed out by a double play hit into by Brady House.
New manager Blake Butera did something in the fourth inning that I absolutely loved. Rather than keep sending Mikolas back out to eat innings and just wear it every fifth day, Butera pulled him early, before the Cardinals could get around to the third time through the order. Brad Lord trotted in from the bullpen to pitch the top of the fourth, which he did very well, but the bigger sign of encouragement is the new regime refusing to just throw the towel in every five days, a feeling that sometimes came from watching Patrick Corbin in the early 2020s.
The Cardinals would get to Lord in the fifth, doubling their lead on a solo homer to center by Jordan Walker, giving him a home run in all three games in this series. Thank goodness he’s on his way out of town. The 3-1 lead that resulted felt a lot more daunting as McGreevy settled into a real groove in the middle innings. The Nats’ last hit against him in his six innings of work came with nobody out in the third. It wasn’t poor approaches or lack of contact; in his six innings, he only struck out one batter, he just did a masterful job of forcing the Nats into soft contact and letting his fielders, specifically JJ Wetherholt, work. Wetherholt put on a show with the glove this afternoon, so much so that it was impossible to tell this was just his second week in the big leagues.
- Michael McGreevy: 6 innings, 4 hits, 1 run (1 earned), 0 walks, 1 strikeout, 91 pitches
- Miles Mikolas: 3 innings, 5 hits, 2 runs (2 earned), 3 walks, 3 strikeouts, 55 pitches
Remember that deadly no-no we talked about last night? The walks? Well, just in case you don’t, we’re getting to talk about them again today. Particularly the leadoff walk. However, the only thing worse than walking the leadoff batter is walking the next guy too, and that’s exactly what Cionel Perez did to lead off the top of the seventh. The Cardinals took immediate advantage, cashing in a run on another RBI single by Burleson, but Perez did limit the damage to just one, getting a strikeout and a double play ball to end the inning with the deficit at 4-1.
Cole Henry threw a scoreless eighth inning, and then ran into trouble trying to finish off the top of the ninth. After a hit by pitch and another walk with two outs, the Nats went to PJ Poulin to try and get the last out, but it didn’t come without trouble. After, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, another walk, this time loading the bases, Yohel Pozo made him pay by ripping a two-run single into left field. That one pretty much sucked the life out of the ballpark and made it a 6-1 Cardinals lead.
The Cardinals used Matt Svanson, Justin Bruihl, and Riley O’Brien to get them to the finish line, as the Nats’ offense put up very little resistance against anyone who toed the rubber for St. Louis today. In fact, after that second straight single to lead off the third inning, the Nationals did not have a hit over the entire rest of the game, yet they only struck out twice in the entire game. Just a great job by the Cards’ staff of pitching to soft contact, and by the St. Louis defense, particularly Wetherholt and Masyn Winn, the middle infielders, both of whom were great today.
The Positives
Well, Brad Lord was the best he’s been all season today; that was definitely one of the biggest positives of the day. His velocity was back up to what we got used to last season, and he did a great job of bridging this game through the middle innings, giving Blake Butera three innings of effective relief work. That home run by Jordan Walker was the only batter he didn’t retire in those frames, as Lord did the job in what was a very interesting strategy by the Nationals to piggyback him and Mikolas.
Offensively, we saw two more hits and a lot of hard contact from James Wood today, finally getting him up over the .200 batting average mark after the rough start to the year. James is hitting the ball tremendously right now, and the Cardinals have had a really tough time pitching to him this week. What we need to start seeing from him is the consistency that eluded him last season. Can he put a full 162 together?
What’s Next?
The opening homestand of the season came to a close this afternoon, and it doesn’t get any easier from here. The early-season NL Central blitz on the Nationals’ schedule will pick back up on Friday night in Milwaukee, after a day off tomorrow. The defending NL Central champion Brewers will start right-hander Chad Patrick (1-0, 0.96 ERA) in the series opener, and he’ll be opposed by Jake Irvin (1-1, 8.00), who the Nationals need to pitch more like he did against the Cubs rather than how he did against the Dodgers. This weekend’s series will get going Friday night at 7:40. Let’s see if the Nats can put their pesky hats on and find that magic they had in Chicago a couple of weekends ago.
Down on the Farm
AAA Rochester
- 6-3 win tonight at Lehigh Valley
- Andrew Alvarez: 5 innings, 2 hits, 2 runs, 3 walks, 6 strikeouts
- Andres Chaparro: 2-4, 2 RBIs
- Dylan Crews: 1-3, 2 walks, stolen base
- Andrew Pinckney: 1-4, home run (1), 3 RBIs
- Tomorrow: 6:35 game at Lehigh Valley (Mitchell Parker pitching)
AA Harrisburg
- 4-2 win tonight vs Akron
- Eriq Swan: 4 innings, 0 hits, 0 runs, 2 walks, 6 strikeouts
- Seaver King: 1-4, home run (1), 2 RBIs
- Cayden Wallace: 2-3, home run (2), walk, RBI
- Caleb Lomavita: 1-4, home run (1), RBI
- Tomorrow: 12:00 game vs Akron (Alex Clemmey pitching)
High-A Wilmington
- 8-3 win tonight at Hudson Valley
- Yoel Tejada: 4.1 innings, 6 hits, 3 runs, 2 walks, 7 strikeouts
- Devin Fitz-Gerald: 1-3, RBI, 3 walks, 2 stolen bases
- Randal Diaz: 2-5, double, 2 RBIs, stolen base
- Tomorrow: 6:35 game at Hudson Valley (Liam Sullivan pitching)
Low-A Fredericksburg
- 5-0 loss tonight at Hill City
- Carson Fischer: 4 innings, 3 hits, 0 runs, 0 walks, 2 strikeouts
- Yeremy Cabrera: 2-3, triple, walk
- Nick Peoples: 1-2, double, walk
- Tomorrow: 6:30 game at Hill City (Louis Portorreal pitching)
