ANAHEIM, Calif. – As he watched from the bullpen in the bottom of the seventh Saturday night, helpless to do anything about the nightmare inning his teammates were suffering through, Kyle Finnegan tried to think of any good that could come from this situation.
The Nationals’ closer would’ve rather been on the mound himself. But that wasn’t going to happen that early in the game. So he could only watch Zach Brzykcy, Eduardo Salazar and Ryan Loutos combine to give up six runs and turn a one-run lead over the Angels into a five-run deficit, then try to help them have some perspective at the end of the night.
“When you find yourself struggling for whatever reason, watching from the outside, you want to go out there and try to help or tell them what to do,” he said. “But as a young player, I think it’s important to learn on your own. Unfortunately in this game, you learn from mistakes a lot of times. I hope these guys learn from things that have hurt them and always remember the things that have gone well.”
Finnegan has been doing a lot of watching from the bullpen in recent weeks. The Nationals today play the ninth and final game of this extra-long trip through Southern California. Their closer has appeared in only two of those games, each of them coming in San Diego, facing only one batter each time, entering in a non-save situation each time.
The Nats have won three games on the trip, one a piece over the Dodgers, Padres and Angels. But in each case, they won by at least four runs. So there hasn’t been a save situation for Finnegan to enter.
“Obviously you want to be on the field contributing, contributing to wins,” he said. “It’s just that the games that we were ahead during this road trip have been situations that I wouldn’t have pitched in. I had a few save opportunities that I warmed up for, and then we tacked on some extra runs. Which is great. I hope we score as many runs as we can. But it’s just managing the workload and trying to stay ready.”
It's been a weird month for Finnegan. The Nats’ 11-game losing streak didn’t exactly present many opportunities for him to pitch. Same for this trip, with the more lopsided wins. All told, he has made only eight appearances in June, fewest of the seven relievers who have been on the active roster the entire month.
As Saturday night’s game played out, with the Nationals taking a 2-1 lead into the bottom of the seventh, did Davey Martinez consider the possibility of just using his best reliever in an unconventional situation, given his lack of recent work and the struggles of others?
Yes, the manager said, but not in the bottom of the seventh.
“Honestly, if we got through that inning, he probably would’ve started the eighth and see how far he got. But we didn’t get there,” Martinez said. “He understands the situation where we’re at. We’ve said if we get through this inning, we might send him out for the eighth to see how far we can take him.”