KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The five-run top of the first – not to mention the extra runs scored in the third and fourth innings – should have been enough to make Miguel Cairo’s afternoon easy. But as Jake Irvin labored himself to keep that big lead intact, it became apparent the Nationals’ interim manager was going to have to play every pitching card he had available to him in an attempt to win today’s series finale against the Royals.
And then it was still going to require some more late offense to pull this one off.
It wasn’t always pretty, but the Nats did find a way to escape Kauffman Stadium with an 8-7 victory, one made possible by Daylen Lile’s game-winning single in the top of the ninth and five relievers combining to allow just one run over five innings.
"They've been ready, they've been settling down. They're doing an excellent job," said Cairo of a relief corps that has been turned over several times this season and currently includes seven rookies alongside 25-year-old closer Jose A. Ferrer. "Today, it was a team effort: Offense, pitching. That's what we're asking."
Lile’s clutch hit came a few minutes after the Royals tied the game against unlikely setup man Clayton Beeter. Luis García Jr. ignited the rally with a one-out double off Kansas City’s Carlos Estévez, then took third on Josh Bell’s flyout to center. Two batters later, Lile got to a 2-1 changeup from Estévez and lined the ball to right field for the go-ahead single.
"It's definitely a moment you dream of," said Lile, now batting .339 with seven extra-base hits over his last 17 games. "After taking that first pitch, I had to calm myself down and get back to what I do best: Staying within myself and capitalizing that run, doing my job."
Ferrer, who had already finished the bottom of the eighth after Beeter blew the lead, came back to pitch the bottom of the ninth, stranding the tying run on third by inducing a grounder to short from Tyler Tolbert to end the game.
"It feels great, those type of opportunities," Ferrer, who recorded a five-out save in his last outing Saturday, said via interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. "But to be honest, I'm ready for whatever opportunity they put me in. Whether it's in the seventh, the eighth, the ninth, I'm going to give it my all."
Cairo had to turn to the bullpen all the way back in the fifth, pulling the ineffective Irvin after 83 pitches. First up was Konnor Pilkington, who issued a one-out walk but followed up with back-to-back called third strikes against Jonathan India and Randal Grichuk that left the Kansas City dugout barking at plate umpire Ryan Additon to no avail.
PJ Poulin got the sixth and immediately got into trouble with a four-pitch walk and a hit-batter. The 29-year-old rookie, though, managed to retire the Royals’ two toughest hitters (Bobby Witt Jr. and Vinnie Pasquantino) before Cairo signaled again to the bullpen for Cole Henry.
Henry has worked his way into the team’s top setup role ahead of Ferrer, but here Cairo entrusted the rookie to get out of the sixth (which he did) and then return for the seventh. A two-out double by India did put the tying runner in scoring position, but Henry responded with a big strikeout of Grichuk to end the inning with the one-run lead still intact.
There were still six outs to go, though, and someone had to bridge the gap between Henry and Ferrer. That someone, it turns out, was Beeter, the recently acquired right-hander who hadn’t seen much high-leverage usage in his first week-plus with the club. Beeter proceeded to give up a leadoff single to No. 9 hitter Kyle Isbel. Worse, he allowed Tolbert (pinch-running for Isbel) to steal both second and third bases (the latter without a throw). And that put Tolbert in position to score the tying run on Witt’s sacrifice fly, leaving the game completely up for grabs entering the ninth.
"Beeter was outstanding. He came in the eighth and threw strikes," Cairo said. "He just got unlucky that Tolbert is fast. I give it to him: He stole two bases and kind of put us in a situation. But Ferrer came down and did his job. It's been a team effort."
It all started out so well today, with the Nationals jumping all over Seth Lugo to take a 5-0 lead in the top of the first. Six of their first seven batters reached base against the veteran right-hander, one of them in dramatic fashion.
The Nats hadn’t hit a grand slam since April 27, 2024, when Jesse Winker did it in Miami, the longest drought in the majors. So when Nathaniel Lowe stepped to the plate with the bases loaded today, the notion of four runs scoring via one swing couldn’t have been high on anyone’s mind. But when Lugo left a curveball over the plate, Lowe took a mighty whack at it and send the ball soaring to right field. It cleared the Kansas City bullpen and gave Lowe and three of his teammates all the time they wanted to stroll around the bases.
"Scoring first is super important," said Lowe, who hadn't homered since July 19 and had driven in only three runs since the All-Star break. "We did obviously a great job of that today, tacked on a couple extra. That was nice."
The Nationals would stay on Lugo throughout his four-inning start, scoring again in the third (Brady House’s RBI single to center) and the fourth (CJ Abrams’ solo homer to right). That made seven runs off the opposing starter, a seemingly comfortable amount of run support for any pitcher.
Not necessarily in this case. Though he took the mound with a five-run lead already in hand, Irvin also took the mound knowing all well his first-inning struggles this season. And it happened again. He walked the leadoff hitter on four pitches and proceeded to allow two runs before the inning finally ended with his pitch count up to 30, his first-inning ERA up to 10.08.
Irvin had been good this season at righting the ship, but that wasn’t true today. He gave up another run in the second, walking the No. 9 hitter along the way. He avoided worse damage by inducing double plays to end both the second and third. But he couldn’t avoid the damage in the fourth.
The right-hander got himself in another jam with another walk, followed by a hit-batter, each coming with two outs. And that brought Pasquantino to the plate with yet another opportunity to hurt the Nationals. His subsequent three-run homer off a changeup gave the Royals first baseman nine RBIs in less than 24 hours and raised Irvin’s season ERA (which stood at 3.42 in late May) to 5.14 (fourth-worst in the majors) with six weeks to go.
"I don't like pitching like (garbage)," he said. "There's a lot of motivation to go forward and just give the team a chance to win every time I take the ball."