Gore dominates again, lineup finally supplies him with win (updated)

The narrative had already been well-established before tonight’s game. MacKenzie Gore had been pitching as well as anybody in the league but had only two wins to show for it because of a lack of run support from his Nationals teammates and a few bullpen mishaps along the way.

"I wish we could score more runs for him. I hope today’s the day when we score 8-10," manager Davey Martinez said this afternoon. "But he’s pitched in some really good games and kept us in the game. … I know he’s up there in strikeouts and he’s doing really well. A few more wins would be really awesome for him."

And then for six innings tonight, Gore’s teammates proceeded to supply him with zero runs of support, unable to produce even one baserunner against the Cubs’ Matthew Boyd.

Through it all, Gore just kept doing what he does best, escaping a rare jam, then finding his groove and posting zero after zero until his night was over at the seventh-inning stretch. At which point, Amed Rosario decided enough was enough.

With a solo homer into the right field bullpen on the first pitch of the bottom of the seventh, Rosario gave the Nationals the offense they desperately needed. And then Nasim Nuñez (who like Rosario was in the lineup for the first time in 10 days) supplied a huge insurance run to help lock up a 2-0 victory over Chicago.

"Big win," Gore said. "Guys that haven't been playing stepped up huge tonight, which is cool to see. That's what good teams do."

In a game that ended before the sky above had a chance to turn black, Gore finally earned his third win of the season thanks to seven scoreless innings against one of the most productive lineups in the majors. And when he was done, Brad Lord and Kyle Finnegan finished the job with zeros in both the eighth and ninth, Finnegan earning his 17th save in 20 attempts by getting Kyle Tucker to ground out with two on and two out.

Offense was at an extreme premium on this warm, early June evening in the nation’s capital. The Cubs totaled five hits, all singles, all but two coming in the top of the first. The Nats totaled four hits, all of them coming from the sixth inning on, none bigger than Rosario’s game-changing blast in the seventh. Nuñez's RBI double on the 10th pitch of his eighth-inning at-bat against Boyd was a very welcome bonus.

"It's only a matter of time," Nuñez said of his team's better-late-than-never offense tonight. "It's only a matter of time until somebody cracks it open. And it was Amed."

And so they found a way to eke out a win over a high-quality opponent, giving themselves a shot at another series win (it would be their fifth in their last six tries) if they can emerge victorious in Thursday night’s finale.

Anyone wondering what the biggest difference between the 2024 version of Gore and the 2025 version of Gore is need only rewatch the top of the first inning from tonight’s game. You’ll learn everything you need to know.

Gore opened his evening allowing three straight singles, loading the bases with nobody out. His 2024 self might well have let things fall apart on him at that point, unable to recover until the opposition had posted a crooked number on the scoreboard. His 2025 self, on the other hand, has learned how to hit the reset button and get himself out of such jams.

So what did Gore do? He struck out Pete Crow-Armstrong with an 0-2 slider. He struck out Dansby Swanson with a 3-2 curveball. And he got Nico Hoerner to foul out to first base, turning potential disaster into a 24-pitch scoreless frame.

"Hey, that's maturity on your part," Martinez told Gore when he got back to the dugout. "Things could've spiraled for you really quick."

"Yeah, I'm getting better at that," the lefty replied.

"No, you're really good at that right now," Martinez reiterated. "Continue to do that. That's who you are."

And with that behind him, Gore got down to business and made sure he never faced anything else resembling that early jam. He allowed only two more batters to reach base (Ian Happ via third-inning walk, Hoerner via fourth-inning hit-by-pitch) and in doing so kept his pitch count down enough to allow him to complete seven scoreless innings on a mere 94 pitches.

He walked off the mound after getting Justin Turner to fly out to center and returned to handshakes and high-fives in the dugout, now the proud owner of a 2.87 ERA and major league-leading 108 strikeouts.

"It goes back to being a dawg and competing," Nuñez said. "Who was going to let up first? And it sure wasn't Mack."

The Nationals needed Gore at his absolute best, because as has too often been the case this year, they provided him minimal-to-no run support. They entered having scored only three total runs while he was on the mound during his last three starts. And they added nothing to that total for most of tonight against Boyd, who was dialed in from the outset and never looked back.

Fielding a lineup with five right-handed hitters for the first time in 10 days (because they were finally facing a left-handed starter), the Nats didn’t reap any benefits early on. Boyd retired the side for five straight innings, needing only 10, 10, eight, nine and eight pitches a piece to do it.

"Look, it's 0-0. He's also been throwing the ball well," Gore said. "It's not like he just all of a sudden came in here tonight. He's been throwing well. So we understood going in, it's probably going to be one of those days."

Nuñez (starting at second base for Luis García Jr.) finally broke up the perfect game bid when he drew a one-out walk in the sixth, only to get picked off moments later. Robert Hassell III immediately singled to right after that, ending the no-hit bid, only to be stranded at first base when CJ Abrams grounded out to end the inning.

And then, at long last, it happened. Rosario (starting at third base for José Tena) led off the bottom of the seventh in a scoreless game and took a whack at Boyd’s first pitch. It was a fastball, and it was well outside the zone. But Rosario managed to reach out and get it, driving the ball to right. It took the crowd a moment to realize just how well he hit it. But when the ball cleared the wall and landed in the home bullpen, the place erupted because the Nationals finally had supplied their ace with a lead.

"When I was on-deck, I was ready for anything," Rosario said, via interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. "I saw it, and I knew I was going to swing at it."