Their ace had labored through 5 1/3 innings of 111-pitch ball. Their lineup had gone dead silent since an early rally against the opposing starter. And their bullpen had turned a slim lead into a slim deficit, giving the crowd of 16,0965 at Nationals Park reason to believe the nightcap of today’s doubleheader against the Tigers was going down an all-too-familiar path.
And then Detroit manager A.J. Hinch turned to the usually reliable Tommy Kahnle for the bottom of the eighth, and the top half of the Nats lineup sprang back to life with one of its most impressive rallies of the season.
Scoring five runs before making an out in the eighth, then adding another after that, the Nationals took a 9-4 lead and then handed over the ninth to Kyle Finnegan, who closed out a most impressive, come-from-behind victory over one of the best teams in the majors.
The Nats came up to bat in the eighth having seen their last 13 batters retired by Tigers starter Jack Flaherty and reliever Chase Lee, 10 of them via strikeout. And then they completely flipped the script against Kahnle.
Sitting on the right-hander’s well-known changeup, they put five straight batters on base, getting singles from CJ Abrams and Luis García Jr. sandwiched around a James Wood walk. Up stepped Nathaniel Lowe, who pounced on a first-pitch changeup and ripped three-run triple (his first of the season) down the right field, everyone scoring as Lowe coasted into third having recorded RBIs Nos. 56, 57 and 58 of the season in dramatic fashion.
Josh Bell actually got a fastball from Kahnle and still managed to drive a double to the gap in left-center for his third run-scoring hit of the night, forcing Hinch to make a pitching change. And the rest of the Nats kept it up against Brenan Hanifee, getting an RBI single from Paul DeJong and an eventual RBI groundout from Jacob Young to finish off a six-run rally.
The late rally came hours after an impressive run of quality at-bats to begin the game.
It wasn’t quite as laborious as Trevor Williams’ 54-pitch top of the first in this afternoon’s opener, but the Nationals made Flaherty work plenty hard in the first frame of the nightcap. Their first six batters each saw at least five pitches, with Lowe and Bell each delivering RBI singles to get them on the board early during what wound up as a 41-pitch inning.
If only they could have sustained that kind of offensive attack. Flaherty quickly found his footing, and aside from Bell’s two-out RBI single in the third didn’t give up another hit through the rest of his outing. The right-hander actually made it all the way through the fifth, throwing only 56 pitches over his final four innings.
That stretch included seven consecutive strikeouts before Flaherty handed it over to Lee, who made it eight in a row when he got Lowe swinging to open the bottom of the sixth.
So the Nats needed their pitching staff to make that 3-0 lead hold up, specifically their burgeoning ace. MacKenzie Gore was up to the challenge in terms of runs allowed (two), but he took his own laborious path to get there.
With Detroit’s hitters fighting off tough pitches, working the count and making a lot of contact (only two strikeouts), Gore needed 58 pitches to complete three scoreless innings, putting him behind the eight ball. The top of the fourth was even more strenuous, with the Tigers plating a run and then loading the bases before Gore came through with a much-needed, three-pitch strikeout of All-Star Javy Báez, raising his pitch count to 90.
Gore would rebound with a quick, eight-pitch fifth, and that opened the door for Davey Martinez to send his starter back to the mound for the sixth. One out, one walk and one single later, Martinez was making the walk to the mound to summon Brad Lord, who would notch a strikeout but then surrender a two-out RBI single to pinch-hitter Colt Keith, with the Nats at least throwing out the trailing runner at the plate to preserve a 3-2 lead.
It was short-lived. Jose A. Ferrer entered with one out and one on in the top of the seventh, and though the lefty did manage to win a nine-pitch battle (all fastballs) with All-Star slugger Riley Greene, he subsequently surrendered a groundball single up the middle to Gleyber Torres and then a two-run double to Jahmai Jones that flipped the 3-2 lead into a 4-3 deficit.
Good thing the Nationals lineup was more than ready to flip the game back in their direction, in a big way, with one of the best rallies of the year.