Postgamer: The 69ᵗʰ win is as sweet as honey!

The script got flipped again in this game as the Washington Nationals got a walk-off win in an extra innings thriller. After the Nats suffered their 39ᵗʰ blown-save of the season, they turned the tables on the Angels again and put a blown-save on their closer. The Nats fell behind 5-4 going into the bottom of the 9ᵗʰ and the Nats put the pressure on the Angels for their second consecutive blown-save. The Nats were 1-70 this season when trailing in the 9ᵗʰ inning.

With Andrew Alvarez as the starter, he had a no-hitter going into the 6ᵗʰ inning and gave up a single to break it up. The lefty remained in the game to go a full 7.0 innings of shutout baseball with 8 strikeouts on 97 pitches and his ERA improved to 3.35.

Unfortunately Alvarez’s 4-0 lead evaporated quickly as Brad Lord pitched the 8ᵗʰ inning and gave up three runs. Will Dion would start the 9ᵗʰ inning and gave up the lead and left with a 5-4 deficit. Jack Sinclair would close-out that inning, and then pitch a scoreless 10ᵗʰ to earn him his first MLB win.

“Winning should always feel good — but we have to find ways to protect 4-run leads late in the game. That starts with me. I have to do a better job of finding ways to make sure we win those games.”

“Yeah, look, I spent some time trying to figure that out. At the end of the day, I felt good about the [relievers] going into the game. They didn’t throw the ball well. I got to figure it out whether that’s on me not putting them in spots to succeed or whatever the case might be. … I’m going to look internally and try to figure out what I can do better to help us get through these games a little bit cleaner.”
— said manager Blake Butera after the game

Good for what Butera said in the postgame. Were his comments in direct response to Paul Toboni’s comments on his Wednesday morning radio show? Who knows. We will never know. Toboni seemed to put a lot of the blown save issues back on the developmental and coaching staff and managerial decisions when he said, “On the whole, we need to be better. We need to be better in a couple different ways — just acquiring talent and developing these guys and putting them in better positions to succeed.” Butera sure hit the mark in saying after today’s game, “… putting them in spots to succeed. …”

The walk-off came after CJ Abrams stole third base and scored on a Harry Ford grounder to shortstop that was not handled cleanly. Every player contributed from the starting lineup. Keibert Ruiz had three hits in this one, and Abimelec Ortiz went 2-for-2 in this one to get off the schneid. And Andres Chaparro caused the blown save with an RBI single as a pinch-hitter. Credit to Jose Tena for a walk, a steal, and an advancement to third base to score on Chappy’s single.

If not for a successful challenge with two outs in the second inning, the Nats would not have scored three runs in that frame. Ruiz scored on a Jacob Young single, and the Nats catcher was originally called out at home. The call was reversed after a long replay review. After that play, the Nats scored two more runs with two outs to make the score 4-0. The Nats would not score again until the bottom of the 9ᵗʰ inning — and then the game-winning run in extra innings sealed the win.

There was a milestone in the game as James Wood stole his 20ᵗʰ base early in the game to join his teammate, Abrams, who also achieved that mark last weekend against the Dodgers, making them the 11ᵗʰ pair of teammates in MLB history to record at least 30 homers and 20 stolen bases in the same season.

Also, Wood joined Abrams and Alfonso Soriano as the only Nats’ players with at least a 30/20 season. Of course, Soriano went 40/40 in 2006 for the Nationals.

A decent September crowd of 25,713 at Nationals Park got to see a thrilling walk-off win and some history on both sides of the record book. The Nats have already clinched a series win going up 2-0 this weekend. The Nationals will go for a sweep on Sunday.

With 12 games to go in the season, the Nats are 69-81. Winning is as sweet as honey! Let’s see how this team can win a bunch more games to finish this season strong.