The Washington Nationals saw CJ Abrams carry the team with two home runs and knocking in all three runs in this 3-1 win for the Nats 74th game in the Curly W column this season with four games to go.
With Abrams big game, he started the game with 99 RBIs, and finished with 102 via two long home runs to get him to 33 home runs. Add to Abrams’ stats his 30 doubles, and 33 stolen bases to put him in some rare air of company as the 16th player in MLB history with those stats.
“He’s so talented and gifted. … Getting over 100 RBIs, I mean just talk about that, and what CJ has done this year. The amount of stolen bases he has, the home runs, the doubles, and RBIs. A superstar in the making. It’s been a lot of fun to watch him do his thing and just sit in the dugout and know he’s on our team. Just couldn’t be more impressed with what CJ has done. I’m proud of him.”
— manager Blake Butera said
Also, putting up some numbers was Dylan Crews with his 10th and 11th stolen bases in the game, he is the 5th Nats player this season to be in the 10 home run and 10 stolen base “club” with Abrams, James Wood, Daylen Lile, and Jacob Young.
The offense didn’t do much tonight except for Abrams and Crews as they combined for 4-of-the-7 hits by the Nationals in this game. And the pair scored the only runs the Nats would need in this game. The pitching held Detroit to just one run on a gift as a strikeout with a wild pitch, that should have been gloved, ended up basically being the run that scored on another wild pitch, that was originally ruled a passed ball.
You could say the pitching results were good but the process wasn’t pretty as they have up six walks, a hit-by-pitch, two wild pitches, and seven hits. There wasn’t one clean inning tonight. But we’ve seen the opposite where the process was great and the results were poor. To get through only 1-run given up, that helped in getting this win in a tight 3-1 final.
This game was started by Riley Cornelio who went 2 2/3 scoreless innings as the opener, and he was relieved by bulk starter, Jackson Kent. He went 4.0 innings of 1-run ball. Both Cornelio and Kent really improved their ERAs. Cornelio exited with a 3.89 ERA for the season, and Kent got to a 5.94. Kent had an 8.03 ERA just five starts ago, and Cornelio was at a 7.94 in July.
“To pitch it the way we did … to see four rookie [pitchers] do this against that team it feels really good.”
— manager Blake Butera said
It was some great bullpen pitching by Jack Sinclair and Erik Tolman to get a hold and a save respectively as they pitched zeroes in the 8th and 9th innings.
In other news, the Rochester Red Wings Triple-A game is ongoing in their playoffs with Memphis.
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