NEW YORK – The Nationals looked defeated, having just squandered Cade Cavalli’s five scoreless innings when Jose A. Ferrer surrendered three runs in search of a six-out save that was not to be. Citi Field was rocking, the Mets just needed to push across one more run to move one step closer to a playoff berth and the Nats were out of reliable relievers.
And then Daylen Lile decided to step up and turn an already remarkable September into something even more remarkable.
With an 11th-inning inside-the-park home run, Lile gave the Nationals the lead back in stunning fashion, then watched as PJ Poulin finished it off in the bottom of the inning for a most unlikely 5-3 victory to deal the Mets’ playoff hopes a serious blow.
Lile, who on Friday night tied the club’s single-season record with his 11th triple, ripped a line drive off the wall in deep left-center off sidearm reliever Tyler Rogers. That guaranteed automatic runner Andres Chaparro would score the go-ahead run, and seemed to guarantee Lile had just broken Denard Span’s triples record set in 2013.
Except Lile wasn’t in search of that record. He wanted to go the distance. So he kept running around third and somehow crossed the plate with his first career inside-the-park homer as a sellout crowd of 43,412 watched in disbelief.
Poulin then recorded three outs in the bottom of the 11th, striking out Juan Soto (who homered off him Friday night) to finish it off and earn the save.
All this came after Cavalli tossed five scoreless innings on 76 pitches, the rookie right-hander more than holding his own against New York’s big boppers. In his ninth big league start following 2 1/2 years of rehab from Tommy John surgery, Cavalli further established his credentials as a big part of the Nats’ future rotation plans.
But because the club has been limiting Cavalli to five innings per start in September, an equally effective performance was needed from the bullpen to close out this game. That was too much to ask.
After a scoreless inning a piece from Konnor Pilkington and Clayton Beeter, interim manager Miguel Cairo stuck with his recent philosophy and used his closer in the eighth against the heart of the Mets lineup. Ferrer, who hadn’t pitched in four days, surrendered back-to-back, two-out doubles to Starling Marte and Mark Vientos to cut the Nationals’ lead from 3-0 to 3-2. The left-hander bounced back to strike out Francisco Alvarez, but it took 22 pitches just to record those three outs.
Nevertheless, Cairo sent Ferrer back out for the ninth. He immediately gave up a leadoff single to Luis Torrens. After Cedric Mullins sacrificed the tying run into scoring position, Ferrer hit Francisco Lindor in the foot with an errant 0-2 slider, bringing Soto to the plate. The former Nats superstar fell behind in the count, 0-2, but managed to deliver a jam-shot RBI single to center on a 100-mph fastball to tie the game.
Ferrer was able to strike out Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte to leave the bases loaded and the game tied, but it took him a career-high 43 pitches to do that. And that still left his teammates needing to find a way to win in extra innings.
The Nationals lineup could not score their automatic runner in the 10th against Mets closer Edwin Diaz. Neither could New York, which stranded him at third base after recently promoted reliever Sauryn Lao induced a double play grounder and a fly ball to left to wriggle out of the jam, pounding his glove in celebration as he hopped off the mound.
And then Lile did his thing in the 11th to make this a happy Saturday after all for the Nats.
Cavalli had already pitched in a couple of tough environments, including Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia and Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, but this assignment had to be his most daunting yet. With a full house of 43,412 packed into Citi Field and the home team again needing to win to maintain its two-game lead over the Reds for the final wild card berth in the National League, there was far more at stake this afternoon than in any of the 27-year-old rookie’s previous big league starts.
You wouldn’t have known it by Cavalli’s presence or performance. Calm and in control throughout, he looked every bit ready to meet the moment.
And his five scoreless innings were hardly a cakewalk. The Mets not only put runners on base in four of those five innings, they put runners in scoring position in each of those frames, forcing Cavalli to come up big in big moments.
Which he did. After a two-out double by Pete Alonso in the first, he got Nimmo to foul out to third base. With two on and one out in the second, he got Brett Baty to ground into a 4-6-3 double play. And with two on and one out in the third, he watched as second baseman Nasim Nunez made a spectacular catch of Alonso’s popup in shallow right field and then another nice play on Nimmo’s grounder up the middle.
Cavalli saved perhaps his biggest moment for last, though. With two on and two out in the fifth, he had to face Alonso for the third time in the game. With Pilkington warming in the bullpen and likely to be summoned to face Nimmo if the inning continued, Cavalli reached back and won a six-pitch battle with the New York slugger, getting him to fly out to right to end the inning and his start.
Cavalli returned to the dugout to high-fives following his third scoreless start in the big leagues. His ERA through nine games is a respectable 4.23. Throw out his one dud against the Yankees, and that number drops to 2.98.
And unlike some others on the Nationals staff who haven’t been able to buy any run support, Cavalli has been the beneficiary of enough to put him in position to win far more games than he’s lost.
The Nationals scored early for him today, plating a run in the top of the first and two more in the top of the second against Mets rookie Nolan McLean. They did so with quality at-bats, contact and some notable help from New York’s shaky defense.
James Wood got the ball rolling from the outset by drawing a leadoff walk, stealing second, taking third on Josh Bell’s single and then scoring on Lile’s fielder’s choice for a 1-0 lead. Wood, who did strike out once to bring himself to within 10 of Mark Reynolds’ single-season, major league record of 223, drew another walk in the fifth.
The two-run rally in the second featured two singles (one of which didn’t even leave the infield) and then a flurry of Mets mistakes. Alonso was charged with an error when he flipped high to his pitcher covering first on Brady House’s grounder to the right side. Soto was charged with an error when he let Riley Adams’ single to right get under his glove and roll to the wall as Dylan Crews scored from first and Adams made it all the way to third. And then Adams scored on McLean’s wild pitch, completing an unusual-but-effective rally that gave the Nats a 3-0 lead.
Who knew how much more was still to come in this wild affair?