After the surprising brilliance of Andrew Alvarez and the clutch performances of Dylan Crews and Robert Hassell III, the Nationals found themselves in position this evening to win a game in which they didn’t put a single man on base until the sixth inning.
It would’ve made for quite the uplifting outcome at the end of what was shaping up to be a disastrous day at the plate against Pirates rookie flamethrower Bubba Chandler.
Instead, the disaster came not at the plate but on the mound in the top of the eighth when three Nats relievers combined to allow four decisive runs via a flurry of walks and well-placed singles, the difference in a 5-1 loss on South Capitol Street.
What began as a scoreless pitchers’ duel between rookie starters Alvarez and Chandler, the latter of which was perfect through five innings, turned into a late bullpen meltdown, something the Nationals’ relief corps hadn’t experienced in a while.
Entrusted with a 1-0 lead after Alvarez went six scoreless in his third career start, the Nats got a 1-2-3 top of the seventh from Clayton Beeter but then saw it all fall apart in the eighth. Cole Henry put them in a bind when he walked two of the three batters he faced. PJ Poulin then got tagged by Bryan Reynolds’ comebacker and couldn’t retrieve the ball in time to make a play, leaving the bases loaded with one out.
Poulin rebounded to get Nick Gonzales on a popup to short, but the rookie left-hander was then greeted by Pirates icon Andrew McCutchen, who calmly poked the first pitch he saw to shallow right-center, the ball landing in front of Crews as the tying and go-ahead runs scored.
Poulin would walk another batter before Miguel Cairo summoned Jackson Rutledge from the bullpen with the bases loaded. Rutledge got Nick Yorke to tap a grounder to the right side, but Luis Garcia Jr. couldn’t get there in time to make the play, two more runs scoring to complete a four-run rally that featured very little loud contact.
Shinnosuke Ogasawara surrendered a tack-on homer to Jared Triolo in the top of the ninth, and the Nationals (who finished with three singles and one walk) went down quietly after that, unable to mount a comeback.
This was a matchup of rookies who only recently made their major league debuts, but also a matchup of contrasting styles and pedigrees. Chandler was one of the most highly touted prospects in the sport when the Pirates called him up from Triple-A Indianapolis less than a month ago, owner of a triple-digit fastball and endless potential. Alvarez didn’t appear on any list of top prospects and was promoted from Triple-A Rochester only because MacKenzie Gore went on the 15-day injured list with left shoulder inflammation, the owner of a low-90s fastball but the quiet confidence that allows him not to be overwhelmed by the assignment.
All that really matters: Both have been effective at the sport’s highest level, and both were at their very best today.
Chandler, making his fifth appearance but only second start, was in complete control from the outset. He retired the side in the first on 11 pitches, in the second on 12 pitches, in the third on seven pitches. He needed 16 pitches to retire the side in the fourth, but that was for good reason: He struck out the side, getting CJ Abrams swinging, James Wood looking and Josh Bell swinging at a 100.6 mph fastball.
By the time Chandler cruised through the fifth, his pitch count still only 61, the buzz in the park was beginning to build. Would the young flamethrower, on the eve of his 23rd birthday, keep his perfect game bid alive? Would Pirates manager Don Kelly let him go the distance?
And then Crews decided to put a stop to that conversation, leading off the sixth with a sharp single to left on Chandler’s first pitch fastball. And the rookie Nats outfielder was just getting warmed up.
When Brady House followed with a fly ball to right, Crews immediately retreated to first base and tagged up, sliding into second just ahead of the tag to put himself into scoring position with a baserunning gamble most others wouldn’t have attempted.
Then, with a 3-2 count on Hassell, Crews took off for third, had to make a deft move to avoid the ball coming off his teammate’s bat, then came around to score on the RBI single for the game’s first run.
That’s all the Nationals would get against Chandler, but that’s more than the Pirates would get against Alvarez. The 26-year-old didn’t have stuff comparable to his counterpart, but that wasn’t a problem. He set the tone for the afternoon by retiring the side in the first on a mere seven pitches, then pitched his way out of jams in the second and third innings, getting a double play grounder out of No. 3 batter Bryan Reynolds to end the third.
Alvarez allowed only two more batters to reach after that, and one was via a strikeout that got away from catcher Jorge Alfaro. He walked off the mound at the end of the sixth, having thrown 85 pitches with nothing but zeroes on the scoreboard, just the latest eye-opening performance by the rookie.
Three starts in, Alvarez now sports a sparkling 1.15 ERA. The only pitcher in club history to post a lower mark in his first three starts: Tanner Roark at 0.95, with the caveat that Roark’s first nine appearances in 2013 actually came out of the bullpen before he moved to the rotation.
With Gore now back from his brief IL stint, the Nationals have to decide how to proceed with Alvarez. Do they use a six-man rotation the rest of the way, keeping him as part of the sextet? Do they go back to a five-man rotation and send him down in spite of his performance? Or do they move someone else from the group to clear a spot for this most unexpected rookie contributor?