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SEATTLE – As lost as they looked at the plate Tuesday night against Logan Evans, the Nationals could not have looked more comfortable when they dug in this evening against George Kirby.
As labored as his recent starts against a number of opponents had felt, Trevor Williams could not have looked more in control tonight when he faced the same Seattle lineup that exploded for nine runs the previous night.
Baseball’s a funny game sometimes, and perhaps it has caused even more head-scratching for the 2025 Nationals than ever before. Because it’s hard to know which version of this team is going to show up on any given night. But when the good version does report for duty as it did tonight in a 9-0 pasting of the Mariners, it sure is fun to watch.
Behind four solo homers from Luis García Jr., Josh Bell, James Wood and Robert Hassell III (the first of his career) and six scoreless innings from Williams, the Nats cruised to an easy victory only 24 hours after they were dominated in the series opener.
"There's always going to be a tomorrow," García said, via interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. "So you have to erase what happened the last day, come in here, work hard and get the win."
As has so often been the case this year, the tone was set early. The Nats got back-to-back homers in the top of the second from García and Bell to take a quick 2-0 lead. And when Williams mowed down the first six batters he faced with ease, they were well on their way to extending a season-long trend.
The Nationals are now 19-7 when they score first, a stark contrast to their 6-23 record when their opponents cross the plate first.
"It loosens everybody up a little bit," manager Davey Martinez said of early offense. "The at-bats were good today. They were crisp."
It took an inning to get going against Kirby, but once they did, the Nationals took it to the Seattle right-hander. It started with García, who hit a couple of balls on the screws Tuesday night with nothing to show for it but made sure his loud contact in the top of the second tonight counted. With an exit velocity of 110.4 mph and just enough launch angle (18 degrees), he cleared the wall in right-center for his fifth homer of the season.
"It was the same direction of the other two that weren't out (Tuesday)," García said. "So when I saw it was a home run, I was really happy."
Seconds later, Bell duplicated the feat, this time going the other way for a rare opposite-field homer and a 2-0 lead built on the broad shoulders of the Nats’ Nos. 5 and 6 hitters. (Bell wound up with not only his first multi-hit game of the year, but also his first three-hit game of the year while also missing a second homer by a few feet.)
García and Bell would both cross the plate again in the fourth, this time via their legs thanks to back-to-back two-out hits by the guys batting behind them: Hassell III and José Tena. Each of them completed quality at-bats with line drive hits to the opposite field, and an aggressive Ricky Gutierrez waved runners around third each time and took advantage of weak throws by left fielder Randy Arozarena. Just like that, the Nationals led 5-0.
"I think it was a splitter, and I just kind of took it through the 6-hole," Hassell said. "When I'm able to do that instead of going down on strikes or whatever the case is. If I'm able to put the ball in play, even if the shortstop gets a handle on the ball, I can use my speed and try to beat it out. That's just what I want to do right there, for sure."
Then came the token big blast from the big boy in the lineup. Wood already launched the longest homer of his young career (448 feet) during Tuesday’s loss (his team’s lone run in that 9-1 game). This time he ambushed a first-pitch slider from Kirby and sent it soaring 435 feet to right-center for a 6-0 lead.
Wood’s 15th homer of the season now puts him on pace for 44, only two shy of Alfonso Soriano’s longstanding single-season club record of 46 set way back in 2006. He's also got 40 RBIs now, on pace for 118, within striking distance of Anthony Rendon's club record of 126 in 2019.
With that kind of rare comfortable lead, Williams was free to go right after the Mariners’ hitters with little fear of suffering significant damage. And the veteran right-hander did that to perfection, wasting very few pitches and getting off the mound nearly as fast as Seattle starter Logan Evans did Tuesday night.
Williams coasted through a 1-2-3 first on six pitches, then needed only 11 more to complete the second. He allowed his first two baserunners in the third but didn’t allow either to reach second base thanks to a nifty tag by CJ Abrams on Miles Mastrobuoni’s stolen base attempt.
"They got me two runs early, then they got me three runs later in the game," Williams said. "When you get a little bit of a cushion, especially on the road against a good lineup like this, you can miss more in the zone, or you can just attack the zone more."
Williams would retire another seven batters in a row, getting him into the sixth on a mere 61 pitches. And though he finally saw the Mariners get a runner into scoring position, he calmly escaped that jam with one of his two strikeouts and a liner to first to complete his six innings of scoreless ball on 76 pitches.
How dramatic was the 33-year-old’s turnaround? He had surrendered at least four runs in each of his last five starts, seeing his ERA rise to 6.39. And with this one sparkling performance, he lowered that number to 5.69.
"After the last start, when we reviewed it, it was a self-inflicted bad start," said Williams, who gave up five runs to the Braves on four hits (two homers) and three walks. "It was messing around the zone, getting into bad counts. The plan going into tonight was: If we're going to get beat, we're going to get beat in the zone. And I thought we did a good job of that."
The game was already well in hand when the top of the eighth rolled around. That didn’t stop the Nationals from piling on, thanks to more clutch hits from some of their youngest hitters. Hassell completed a three-hit night by launching the first homer of his career. Daylen Lile followed with his first career double. And Wood finished things off with a two-run double that turned this into a most enjoyable night for the visitors.
"I'm proud of them for bouncing back today," Martinez said. "Yesterday was a tough game. We came back today and played the game the right way."
