HOUSTON – To beat the Astros on a night in which Framber Valdez’s curveball was untouchable, the Nationals were going to need an equally effective outing from starter-turned-reliever-turned-starter Brad Lord, just enough offense from a lineup missing James Wood to give themselves a lead and then zeros from their bullpen to close things out.
When they found a way to get all of that and walk out of Daikin Park with a 2-1 victory, it might well have represented the most impressive victory of the still-nascent Miguel Cairo Era.
Behind 5 1/3 standout innings from Lord, clutch hits from Nathaniel Lowe and Riley Adams and 3 2/3 scoreless innings from the bullpen, the Nationals emerged on top in a pitchers’ duel and won for the fifth time in their last seven games. To have done that against one of the toughest opponents on their recent schedule, against their ace nonetheless, made it particularly notable.
"It's exciting, because you have to play a clean game," Lowe said. "And especially against a first-place team, you have to play a clean game anyway. We did that today."
Adams’ solo homer in the seventh off reliever Bryan King proved the difference, an opposite-field blast for his third homer in his last 11 games, equaling the total from his first 31 games.
That broke a 1-1 tie and left the rest of the contest in the hands of the Nats bullpen. Picking up where Lord left off, the quartet of Konnor Pilkington, Luis García, Jose A. Ferrer and Kyle Finnegan held the one-run lead and secured the tense win.
"I was happy I was able to do that," Adams said of his go-ahead homer. "I think even more impressive, our pitching held us through that game. And when you've got a tough pitcher like Framber on the other side, for our guys to step up and throw the way they did was huge for us."
The Nationals were highly encouraged by Lord’s initial return to the rotation, in which he held the Reds to one run over four innings, limited to 50 pitches because his arm wasn’t ready yet for a heavier workload. They planned to extend him a bit further tonight, hoping for similar results, and the rookie did not disappoint.
With precision and efficiency, Lord retired the first 14 Houston batters he faced, only one of them hitting the ball out of the infield. He struck out only two batters along the way, but that actually played to his benefit because it kept his pitch count low.
"I feel like just really being able to keep the ball down tonight, really mixing the sinker, changeup and slider at the bottom of the zone," he said when asked what allowed him to be so efficient. "It got them off-balance and got a lot of ground balls."
Lord was poised to finish the fifth around the 50-pitch mark when he finally stumbled for just a few moments. He issued a four-pitch walk to Yainer Diaz, giving the Astros their first baserunner. Then he served up a double to Mauricio Dubón, the ball dying in the left field corner and giving Diaz enough time to score all the way from first with the game’s first run on Houston’s first hit.
Lord wound up facing two more batters, finishing out the fifth and recording one out in the sixth before Cairo decided to pull him at 59 pitches. He departed having further justified the team’s decision to make him a starter again, having now allowed a total of two runs over 9 1/3 innings since moving out of the bullpen.
How has he made this transition look so much easier than it really is?
"The challenge is just changing your day-to-day routine, going back to the starter role where you have five days in between when you throw, where as a reliever I was throwing almost every other night," Lord said. "The mental side of being able to stay locked in, with all those days in between."
As much as he knew he could use the threat of his best hitter in the lineup against Valdez, Cairo also knew Wood really needed a day off. The 22-year-old slugger had sat out only one game since making his major league debut 13 months ago, and after participating in both the Home Run Derby and All-Star Game he found himself with just one hit in his last 20 at-bats, striking out 13 times in the process.
"I just want to give him a little bit of a break, more mentally," Cairo said this afternoon. "I told him to come in on the last bus so he can relax, chill out and just have a chill day."
Who knows what difference Wood might have made. This much was clear, though: The Nationals who did play tonight mostly looked helpless against Valdez.
Through five innings, they managed all of two hits and a walk off the All-Star lefty, who needed five strikeouts to reach the 1,000-mark for his career and easily got there by the top of the third. He finished with 12 strikeouts over six innings, the vast majority of them coming on his devastating curveball. (They wound up striking out 19 total times in the game, becoming only the fifth team in major league history to still win in spite of that hefty number.)
"I don't know how we get there," Cairo said. "But we got a W, and that's most important."
The Nats swung at 19 of Valdez’s curveballs through 5 2/3 innings, and they whiffed at a staggering 14 of them. The five times they did manage to make contact all resulted in foul balls. They couldn’t put a single one of them in play … until one of Lowe’s most impressive at-bats of the season.
Lowe stepped to the plate after Josh Bell drew a two-out walk in the sixth and immediately found himself stuck in an 0-2 hole. But he found a way to battle his way back to a full count, and when Valdez tried to convert one more curveball, Lowe was ready for it. He ripped a line drive into right field and watched as Bell chugged all the way around from first to score standing up, the Nationals on the board at last.
"Especially for guys facing him the first time, he's super tough," said Lowe, now 7-for-26 with three doubles and a homer in his career vs. Valdez. "And it really doesn't get easier. You just have to be very disciplined with your approach, and I guess hope in a sense he throws it in a good place where you can hit it."