The Nationals today just plain got beat. The Braves scheduling JR Ritchie to make his big league debut wound up being a stroke of genius, as the young rightie shut the Nats down for seven innings, after allowing a homer to James Wood on the first pitch of his career. Cade Cavalli struck out a career-high ten batters this afternoon over his five innings of work, but Cionel Perez just didn’t have his best stuff today, and the Braves jumped on him in the seventh for what would end up being the decisive inning.

The Action

It was a hot start for Cade Cavalli, as he tossed a zero in the first inning, topped off with two strikeouts to begin what was a career day for him in that category. Then offensively, the Nationals got off to the best start you could imagine. James Wood didn’t wait around and let JR Ritchie steal a strike on a first pitch fastball to start off his debut, Wood came out in attack mode and sent a middle-middle fastball over the wall in right field for his tenth of the season, and third in as many nights to put Washington ahead 1-0.

Cavalli recorded two more strikeouts in a scoreless second, leading to a rally in the bottom of the inning where the Nationals had men on first and third with two outs. With a 1-0 count on Keibert Ruiz, the Nats decided to put some guys in motion to try and steal a run, with Vivas taking off for second on the pitch. As soon as the catcher threw down, Daylen Lile got hung up near third and was thrown out to end the inning on what may have been a botched play call, or just a baserunning mistake on Lile’s part.

The Braves got on the board finally in the top of the fourth, as Ozzie Albies tied the game with a sacrifice fly, and then Michael Harris continued his reign of terror in DC with an RBI single that put Atlanta ahead 2-1. Cavalli would allow the next batter to single as well, putting him in danger of surrendering more, but back-to-back strikeouts would get him out of the jam.

The Nats’ offense responded immediately in the bottom half of the fourth, as CJ Abrams went down to get a changeup just below the zone, and he sent it soaring out to center field for a game-tying solo shot, his seventh of the year to tie the game at two apiece.

Cavalli was right back to it in the fifth, striking out the side around a Ronald Acuna single to get him to ten strikeouts for the first time in his big league career. Unfortunately, JR Ritchie found his zone in the middle innings, as the Nationals didn’t have a single hit between the 5th and 7th innings, his last three frames in what ended up being a pretty dominant debut. The Nats have had some rough luck this season with guys making their big league debuts, as both Ritchie and Andrew Painter have done it against them this year and both were fantastic.

Richard Lovelady worked out of a jam for the Nats in the top of the sixth to keep the game tied up at two, but it would not remain that way for long.

• JR Ritchie: 7 innings, 5 hits, 2 runs (2 earned), 2 walks, 7 strikeouts, 89 pitches
• Cade Cavalli: 5 innings, 7 hits, 2 runs (2 earned), 0 walks, 10 strikeouts, 85 pitches

The top of the seventh was the doom inning for the Nationals. Cionel Perez was tasked with keeping the game tied, and did anything but. The inning started innocently enough, with a strikeout of Ronald Acuna, but things went downhill from there. A walk, single, and another walk loaded the bases with one out when Blake Butera decided he had enough and brought in Gus Varland to try and get out of the jam with a tie still intact. Before his first batter could be finished a run was already in, as Drake Baldwin scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch, then two more came in to score on a two-run single by Ozzie Albies, and then the punctuation mark being an RBI double by Harris. So after all of that, the Braves led 6-2, and you could just feel the air start to seep out of Nationals Park.

The rest of the game was pretty silent and uneventful besides a solo homer by Albies in the ninth against Julian Fernandez. Offensively, the Nationals went down silently against Dylan Lee and Carlos Carrasco over the final two innings, putting the bow on a 7-2 Braves victory, and a 3-1 series win for them in what was just a frustrating week at home for the Nationals.

The Positives

On the pitching side, Richard Lovelady was the only Nat to post a zero in the runs column for his outing today. Cade Cavalli overall, although he danced around some heavy traffic, showcased the serious strikeout stuff that has had us all so enamored with him for years, and its just good to see how his stuff really seems to take a tick upwards against division opponents.

Offensively, Daylen Lile was on base in all three at-bats, 2 hits and a walk for Lile today. Besides the big strikes by Wood and Abrams, that’s really about all I have for you in terms of positives this afternoon, I’m just really ready to get moving towards Chicago and put this series in the rearview.

What’s Next?

The Nats will hit the road tonight after wrapping up this homestand, and this time the destination is not to one of the preeminent teams in the league. After a brutally difficult schedule to begin the season, the Nats will get a weekend trip to Chicago for a three-game series against the White Sox. The great thing about this sport is that anyone can beat anyone else on any given day, and the Sox specifically have played well against the Nationals recently. The Sox have a very talented young hitting core, with a rotation headlined by the young, 6’10” left-handed fireballer, Noah Schultz, who will make his third career start on Saturday against the Nats. I just dropped that in there because I’m really excited to see him. Anyways, the series will get underway tomorrow evening at 7:40, the Nats will start Miles Mikolas (0-3, 9.15 ERA) without an opener this time, and he will be opposed by the former National, Erick Fedde (0-3, 3.92 ERA). Fedde has had a good amount of success against Washington since leaving, so let’s hope the Nats can get to him tomorrow night and get off to a strong start to this weekend’s set.

Down on the Farm

AAA Rochester

• 6:35 game tonight at Scranton Wilkes-Barre (score and stats will be updated tonight)

AA Harrisburg

• 6:30 game tonight versus Altoona (score and stats will be updated tonight)

High-A Wilmington

• 7:00 game tonight at Frederick (score and stats will be updated tonight)

Low-A Fredericksburg

• 6:35 game tonight at Salem (score and stats will be updated tonight)