After late rain delay, Nats fall in Flushing (updated)

NEW YORK – Kyle Finnegan trotted in from the bullpen, took the ball from Davey Martinez and began warming up for what was about to be the biggest moment of the night. The bases were loaded with one out in the bottom of the eighth, the Nationals and Mets were tied and Finnegan was going to have to try to pitch his way out of this jam and send the game to the ninth still tied.

And then before he could actually throw his first pitch to Mark Canha, Finnegan turned to his right and saw the Citi Field grounds crew racing into action. Umpires motioned to everyone to get off the field. The PA announcer instructed fans to take cover. And this tie ballgame was thrust into a most untimely delay just moments before the skies over Flushing opened and dumped torrential rain and wind onto the now-covered field.

By the time it was finally OK to play again, some 97 minutes later, Finnegan was back on the mound, ready to face that bases-loaded jam again. And though the Nats closer did his job, it wasn’t enough to prevent the eventual winning run from scoring.

Canha’s sacrifice fly to right on Finnegan’s fifth pitch was enough to lift the Mets to a wild, 2-1 victory at the end of a long and strange night at the ballpark.

"As a a reliever, you're constantly getting warmed up and then sat down," Finnegan said. "So I just played it like that. I was fine. No issues."

The loss officially was charged to Mason Thompson, who let the tying run score and then loaded the bases with one out in the eighth before Martinez decided to bring in Finnegan. The Nationals’ last-ditch attempt to rally in the top of the ninth fizzled, with Brooks Raley recording the final three outs instead of usual Mets closer David Robertson, who it turns out had just been traded to the Marlins.

All of this came at the conclusion of a tight, tense ballgame, in which the Nationals tried to make one run hold up. Josiah Gray was up to the task, posting six straight zeroes in one of his most effective starts of the season. The bullpen, try as it might to finish the job, couldn’t do it.

Jordan Weems and Jose A. Ferrer combined to get through the seventh, with Ferrer stranding the tying run in scoring position in perhaps his biggest moment to date in the big leagues. Thompson, though, did allow the tying run to score in the eighth, even though he wasn’t hit hard.

Thompson got into a jam via a dribbler in front of the plate and a blooper to shallow center, each resulting in a single. Daniel Vogelbach’s single through the right side of the infield brought home Jeff McNeil to make it 1-1, then Thompson made a mess of the inning with a wild pitch and a hit batter to load the bases with one out.

"Look, a 12-foot roller, a bloop hit and then when he hit the batter, that's when I thought that was it," Martinez said. "But I thought today he threw the ball really well. He gave up a hit, 3-2 to Vogelbach, but the ball was right there where he wanted to throw it."

Martinez didn't let Thompson try to get out of the bases-loaded jam. Instead, he emerged from the dugout and signaled for Finnegan, hoping his closer could get the job done, then his lineup could retake the lead, then Finnegan could come back to finish it off in the bottom of the ninth.

It never came to that. After the rain delay, Canha sent a high fly ball to right on Finnegan's fifth pitch, and though Lane Thomas made a good throw to the plate, it was just a tick too late to get the tagging-up Pete Alonso.

"All I could judge was the direction of the throw, and it looked good," Finnegan said. "It was right on the money. He just beat it there."

Before any of that could take place, the game was abruptly halted. It happened before a drop of rain fell from the sky, but it was pouring only minutes later, creating a whopper of a dilemma near the end of a game that was already compelling for different reasons.

"It was a tough call," Martinez said. "Obviously I talked to Finnegan. With a reliever, it's a little different, because he could be up in the eighth inning, all of a sudden they tie up the game, we sit him back down and we have a chance to win it in the 16th. That's the way we looked at it."

If you had to pick one start to demonstrate the difference between Gray’s 2023 season and his 2022 season, this might well be the best example. He put runners on base, at least one in five of his six innings. But he kept finding ways to keep those runners from crossing the plate. And he most certainly didn’t let anyone score via homer.

There were a few close calls, including a back-to-back sequence in the bottom of the third in which McNeil and Pete Alonso hit the ball a combined 704 feet, each of those drives caught at the warning track. But Gray once again kept the ball in the yard, the biggest difference from last season to this one.

Look at his rate stats, and you may be surprised to see his WHIP has gone up and his strikeout rate down this year. But the most important change is in his home run rate, which he has cut in half. Because of that, Gray now sports a 3.27 ERA with the season roughly two-thirds complete.

"It comes down to a lot of things, but my home run-to-fly ball rate is dramatically improved," he said. "I think a lot more fly balls are being caught, staying in the park. There's some luck to it, as well, but home runs are part of the game. Whether you give them up or you don't, it's just something you live with. But I think it's been awesome to see some improvements in that area."

Martinez entered the day talking about how much he hoped his team would take the quality approach that produced so much late offense the last three days into their early at-bats tonight. In their series against the Rockies, the Nats scored 15 runs from the seventh inning on, but only two prior to that. (And both were unearned.)

Alas, it was more of the same tonight against Mets starter Kodai Senga, who had an aggressive group of Nationals hitters flailing away at his assortment of breaking and offspeed pitches, most notably his so-called “ghost forkball.” They managed only one hit through five innings (Corey Dickerson’s leadoff single in the fifth), plus a couple of walks and one batter who reached on a strikeout in which the ball got away from catcher Omar Narváez.

"We get guys on third base with less than two outs, in games like this, those runs are important," Martinez said. "We've got to have better at-bats. Any way you can to get the ball in the outfield, we've got to do a better job of that."

They did finally push someone across the plate in the top of the sixth, but it did not happen on a clutch hit or a drive to the gap or over the fence. It happened with the ultimate small-ball sequence: A leadoff walk and stolen base by CJ Abrams, a catcher’s interference that allowed Jeimer Candelario to reach base, a ground ball single by Joey Meneses that didn’t score the runner from second and a sacrifice fly by Keibert Ruiz, who with the bases loaded swung at a first-pitch forkball at his ankles but managed to hit the ball in the air and deep enough to bring Abrams home with the night’s first run.

"Being able to get on for the team and steal bases, it means more runs," Abrams said. "So anytime I can get on, it's big."

Unable to do anything else at the plate, the Nationals forced Gray and the bullpen to make that 1-0 lead hold up. Gray did his part, pitching his way out of jams and avoiding damaging contact before departing after the sixth. It was up to the bullpen to do the rest. With Mother Nature getting involved, too.

"The whole thing was weird, but I could see their concern," Martinez said. "It downpoured, and there was a lot of lightning around. They just wanted to be safe."