Postgamer #107: Nats fall back down to earth, leave nine runners on base in 3-2 loss: A recap

If the goal on offense was just to generate scoring opportunities, the Nationals would have won tonight’s ballgame in a landslide. Unfortunately, you can’t win unless you cash in on those opportunities, and the Nats did everything in their power tonight to ensure that even the most surefire chances were not converted. Obviously when you lose a game 3-2, every little mistake is magnified, but that’s baseball.

The Blue Jays pulled Max Scherzer with two outs in the third inning, and their bullpen proceeded to throw 6⅓ innings of four-hit baseball to silence the Washington offense and take game one of a critical series.

The Action

Eddy Yean was a major bright spot at the beginning of the game, the new guy in a bullpen that’s been mired in mediocrity this season. He came out of the pen to serve as the Nats’ opener tonight and began the game by retiring the first six batters he faced on just 11 pitches. In between those two wildly economical innings, the Nationals blew their best scoring opportunity that they’d have all night in the bottom of the first.

James Wood began the game against Max Scherzer with a base hit, and then after stealing second, he pulled into third base on another single, this time by Luis Garcia Jr. So the Nats immediately had men on the corners with nobody out, needing just about anything in play to go ahead and take a quick lead, but Jose Tena apparently didn’t get that memo, as he came up and struck out for the first out. Not to worry, though; CJ Abrams followed that with a walk to load the bases, still with just one out, but this time it was Dylan Crews‘ turn to choke in a big moment, as he too struck out in the big situation. Crews was the only starter who was batting right-handed. A Daylen Lile soft groundout would put the finishing touches on a Houdini-like escape by Scherzer, and an endlessly frustrating start to the game by a Nationals offense that stranded nine runners on base tonight as well as going just 2-of-10 in RISP spots — those two hits were from Garcia.

The Nats did finally get on the board in the bottom of the second inning thanks to an RBI double by Garcia. But once again, Jose Tena came up with two runners in scoring position and, instead of delivering, grounded out to end the inning.

Eddy Yean got the first batter of the third inning out on two pitches, making that seven straight outs in just 13 pitches to begin the game. Unfortunately, Luis Urias was the eighth batter, and he broke the seal with a solo home run to center, tying this game up at one apiece. Before we go further, I am not going to hear any criticism of Blake Butera still having Yean in the game. I saw some people second-guessing that decision after the home run, and I think that’s just ridiculous. The goal for every pitcher is typically to complete each inning in 15-ish pitches. Yean had completed 2.1 innings in just 13 pitches, something I’ve never seen before. Given who was coming in to pitch the bulk tonight (Andrew Alvarez), and the state of this Washington bullpen, you’d be crazy to not send Yean back out there for the third inning.

Now, Butera could have taken Yean out after the homer; I won’t dispute that. And that may have been the right call because the Blue Jays took the lead shortly after the home run thanks to back-to-back doubles, including a go-ahead RBI double by Ernie Clement on some bad luck for the Nats as the ball hit the base at third and bounced high in the air.

So Andrew Alvarez came into the game with one out in the third inning, trailing 2-1, and he was able to get to work eating innings and dodging baserunners like they were poisonous. Alvarez had a strange outing tonight, where it felt like the Blue Jays really got to him, but in reality, the kid threw 4.1 innings of one-run ball; that’s a heck of a game for him. Don’t mind the seven men that reached base in the process, as long as they don’t score I’m content.

Unfortunately, while this was happening, the Toronto bullpen was going to work. Mason Fluharty was first out of the pen and he got them four outs and into the fifth inning without trouble, where another lefty, Adam Macko took over.

The Blue Jays got their final run of the night in that fourth inning, unfortunately with two outs. Myles Straw, the nine-hole hitter, lined a single to center field to drive in Kazuma Okomoto, and the Jays doubled their lead to 3-1.

The Nats got one back in the fifth, as Blake Butera pressed the right button, substituting Andres Chaparro into the DH spot replacing Tena. Chaparro took advantage immediately of the favorable matchup against the lefty, smacking the first pitch he saw 432 feet out to left field for his fifth homer of the season. That blast would bring the Nats back to within a run, but that’s where they would remain the rest of the night against a monstrous Toronto bullpen.

Alvarez continued his good work with a clean sixth inning before the Nats squandered a leadoff single in the bottom of the inning, thanks to a baserunning blunder by Daylen Lile that let reliever Spencer Miles off the hook. Alvarez ended up retiring the final six batters he faced before handing off to Paxton Schultz with two outs in the seventh.

Schultz, just up from Triple-A, covered three outs himself before handing off to Carson Palmquist, who took care of the last four for the night. All in all, it was a really nice night by the pitching staff. The Nats threw some of their lower-leverage options in a big game, and they answered the call, as you should be able to win any game in which your opponent scores just three runs.

The Toronto bullpen just kept running through the Washington offense like a chainsaw, as Tyler Rogers threw a dominant seventh, and then Jeff Hoffman survived a two-out double by Dylan Crews in what was also a very impressive eighth inning from him. I do want to give a quick hat off to Dylan Crews; it had not been a good night for him. He’d been facing nothing but righties, whom he has struggled mightily against, but he came up big in the eighth against probably the nastiest righty he saw all night. Those are the kinds of encouraging signs we need to be looking for, because as analytically driven as the Nationals are, it’s a fact that there’s going to be some at-bats where a guy has to face his non-favored hand, and in those at-bats, we have to have guys who can at least compete. We’ve learned a lot about some of our guys in games like tonight, specifically their inability to adapt. At-bats like Andres Chaparro‘s in the eighth against Hoffman, where he laid off to straight sliders to go ahead 2-0, before swinging and missing at three consecutive sliders, the last two well off the plate to strike out, reinforce the ugly narrative that there really are some guys who are completely useless against righties, and others against lefties, and you just can’t be that as a major leaguer.

The game came to a painfully tough end, as the Nats rallied against all-star closer Louis Varland in the bottom of the ninth. Nasim Nunez turned around a triple-digit fastball for a base hit to extend the game with two outs and give James Wood a chance to win it in front of a fully standing crowd. Varland wanted nothing to do with Wood, and walked him on five pitches to bring the tying run to scoring position and put the winning run on first for Luis Garcia. Garcia ended up being overmatched by a 100-mile-per hour fastball at the top of the zone, ending what was a breathtaking ninth inning in gut-wrenching fashion, and giving the Blue Jays a game one win in what really looked like it was going to be a good night for the Nationals.

What’s Next?

The teams will reconvene tomorrow night at 6:45 for game two of this series. The Nats will send out their ace, Cade Cavalli (7-4, 3.58 ERA), to try to even up the series and keep the Nationals from falling in the playoff chase. It’s a new feeling in DC, one we haven’t felt in a while, but every game matters big time right now. That’s a fact that both makes every game more exciting but losses like tonight harder to stomach. They’ll take their hacks tomorrow against Shane Bieber (2-1, 4.70 ERA), who could very well be throwing his final game as a Blue Jay.