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SAN DIEGO – It seems to be defying logic, because the opposing pitching staffs are much better than what they faced last week and the ball isn’t supposed to carry better in the cool Southern California air than it does in the hot and humid nastiness back home.
But sometimes you have to throw logic out the door and just embrace what you’re seeing with your own eyes. And four games into what should be a tough West Coast trip for a previously reeling team, the Nationals are putting together the kind of offensive performances they desperately needed last week when they were losing to the Marlins and Rockies.
They scored 6.3 runs per game over the weekend at Dodger Stadium. And in tonight’s series opener on a 64-degree late-June evening at Petco Park, they took it a step further, blasting their way to a 10-6 win over the Padres behind three hits a piece from two of the young stars they acquired from San Diego three years ago.
"I just think we were kind of due," left fielder James Wood said. "We've been hitting the ball hard, just right at people. I feel like not much has changed, maybe a few more homers. But I just think the balls we've hit hard are finding gaps."
CJ Abrams went 3-for-5 and scored three runs. Wood went 3-for-5 and drove in four runs, three of them coming on his latest towering home run, this one clanging off the right field foul pole for the 22-year-old’s 22nd round tripper of the season.
"We swung the bats well," Abrams said. "We've been swinging it well. They fell in place today. And we added runs when we could. Just a great game overall."
The victory was marred by a frightening incident in the top of the fourth, when Keibert Ruiz was struck on the side of the head by a scorched foul ball off Josh Bell’s bat that caromed off the back of the dugout wall and caught an unsuspecting Ruiz, who was watching from the front rail. He immediately grabbed his head and rushed back to the clubhouse with director of athletic training Paul Lessard beside him, leaving backup Riley Adams as the team’s only available catcher for the rest of the night.
Ruiz, who remained conscious and coherent the entire time, departed the ballpark to get a CT scan at a nearby hospital as the team anxiously awaited results.
"When he went down, we kind of got scared a little bit," manager Davey Martinez said. "He had a nice lump on his head. A little concerned right now. Hopefully he comes out of it OK."
As a rule of thumb, the Nationals this season have been able to get to opposing starters early much more often then they’ve gotten to them late. But there have been exceptions to the rule, and tonight certainly qualified.
Their first time through the order against Stephen Kolek, the Nats went 0-for-8 with a walk, and that one baserunner (Daylen Lile) was promptly called out when he stole second but overslid the bag (the latest of several such facepalm moments for this team of late). But everything changed the second time through the lineup, when the contact suddenly turned loud and every batted ball found grass.
A four-run fourth-inning rally included hits by Wood, Luis García Jr. (who now owns a 12-game hitting streak), Nathaniel Lowe and Brady House, plus a sacrifice fly by Bell moments after his unfortunately placed foul ball into the dugout.
"Obviously, the first time through he made pretty quick work of us," Wood said. "But I just think we did a good job one-through-nine of just adjusting the second time through and coming up with a better plan."
And it continued into the fifth inning with five straight singles off Kolek and reliever Wandy Peralta delivered by Abrams, Wood, García, Lowe and Bell, the last of which extended the Nats’ lead to 6-1 and left the Petco Park crowd booing.
The run support was much appreciated by Mitchell Parker, who didn’t have a ton of swing-and-miss stuff but did record a ton of outs while suffering minimal damage. The left-hander wasn’t as sharp as he was last week when he struck out eight and allowed only one run over six innings against the Rockies, but he was just as effective against a much tougher Padres lineup.
After escaping a two-on, first-inning jam, Parker got down to work and retired seven straight to get through three scoreless on a mere 35 pitches. He left an 0-2 curveball way up in the zone to Manny Machado and paid the price with a leadoff homer in the fourth, but he settled right back in and didn’t surrender another hit until the sixth.
"Ten strikeouts, no strikeouts ... if we're going five, six innings, that's a good day," Parker said.
That sixth inning might’ve been the difference in the whole ballgame. One day after a previously dominant Michael Soroka couldn’t complete the sixth and Jose A. Ferrer served up a grand slam to the Dodgers’ Max Muncy, Parker did find a way to get through that frame with only one run scoring on Gavin Sheets’ two-out RBI single. (He did get some help from Lile, who went back to the wall and made a leaping grab of Luis Arraez’s deep drive, robbing him of at least a double.)
At 95 pitches, Parker returned to the dugout seemingly done for the night. Martinez, though, wanted his starter to face one more batter, the left-handed Jake Cronenworth, before handing over the rest of the game to a taxed bullpen. Parker would throw only one pitch before Martinez was walking to the mound, Cronenworth circling the bases having cut the lead to 6-3.
"He was the lone lefty today. Ferrer was down (after pitching the last two days)," Martinez said. "We wanted to see if we could get him through that left-handed batter. Unfortunately, it didn't work, but he was a good matchup for him."
No problem, because Wood made sure things never got any closer than that. Playing in San Diego for the first time, the Padres’ 2021 second-round pick put a final stamp on this victory when he took lefty Yuki Matsui way deep down the right field line in the top of the eighth, his fourth homer in five days.
"I signed here. I've gone to a few games here. It was cool to just be back," Wood said. "It felt a little different on the field than in the stands."
Bell followed with his first right-handed homer of the season, one more highlight for a road trip that has already seen the Nationals blast 11 total homers in four games, with five more games still to be played out here.
"We're really swinging at strikes, that's been the key," Martinez said. "Not trying to do a whole lot, but limiting our chase, trying to get the ball up. They've been swinging the bats really well."
