How many of you had the Washington Nationals going into Wrigley Field and taking two out of three from the Cubs to start the season on your bingo cards? And even if you’re going to try to tell me you did, did you have them doing it despite a 2-20 weekend combined between James Wood and CJ Abrams? Yeah, I didn’t think so. The Nats took the rubber game of this series this afternoon in a 6-3 victory behind five strong innings from Jake Irvin, and potentially the current front-runner for NL MVP, Joey Wiemer. OK, NL Player of the Week. Just as everyone expected, right? That is the definition of a player carrying his team.

This one got underway in a little bit of an inauspicious manner, as Cubs’ starter Shota Imanaga began the day by striking out James Wood and Andres Chaparro. Then, just as I began to turn my mind towards the bottom half of the inning, the Nationals put together a brilliant display of two-out hitting to jump out in front. Brady House and Daylen Lile both jumped on Imanaga early in their respective counts, and came up with back-to-back singles to allow the Nats’ new superstar, Joey Wiemer, to do some early damage. And boy did he ever. The Cubs tried to beat him with another backfoot offspeed pitch, similar to the location of the pitch he homered off of on Thursday, but the result was just the same. Wiemer’s home run to left gave Jake Irvin and the Nats a 3-0 lead before even taking the field on defense.

That’s how the scoreboard would stay throughout the beginning of this game, as Irvin looked visibly improved from what we saw from him last year. Not only was his fastball velocity much better, but he had a very effective fastball/sinker mix, keeping the Cubs’ lineup off balance with some excellent command. Probably the biggest takeaway from Jake’s outing this afternoon was the effectiveness of his new sweeper, a pitch he and new pitching coach Simon Mathews have been working on. That sweeper added another weapon to his arsenal, and he was able to use it very well throughout his outing, specifically in how he located it. His revamped arsenal and polished command paid dividends, as the Cubs only managed three hits off of him over his five innings; meanwhile, Irvin amassed seven strikeouts, using a variety of pitches to do it. All in all, I am ecstatic about what we saw from him today, it feels like he’s really getting closer to taking the step we all expected him to make last season.

The Cubs threatened once to derail Irvin’s afternoon, with a quick little onslaught of home runs to lead off the bottom of the fourth. Alex Bregman and Ian Happ led off the inning with back-to-back solo shots, cutting the Washington lead to 3-2. Perhaps the most encouraging part of Jake’s game today was that he didn’t allow that to knock him down; he got right back on the mound and finished the inning without further damage, and the lead was still intact. The bottom of the fifth inning was a noticeable change from the Dave Martinez era. Irvin finished his fourth inning at 73 pitches and started to see some harder contact during the second time through the Cubs’ order. Blake Butera pulled Cade Cavalli after 75 pitches on Thursday afternoon, so that, along with the Martinez managing style I’m used to, made me think there’s no way we see Irvin in the fifth. Butera had other ideas. The new skipper sent his starter back out for the fifth to give him a shot at getting in line for the win, and Irvin rewarded his new manager by tossing a zero in the frame to get the Nationals through five innings with a 3-2 lead still intact — and exit at 93 pitches.

• Jake Irvin: 5 innings, 2 earned runs