-1745819772711.png){kind=logo}
PHILADELPHIA – The lights went down at Citizens Bank Park, the cell phones turned on and a sellout crowd of 44,757 roared as Jhoan Duran entered from the bullpen for the top of the ninth. There may be no more imposing scene in baseball right now, and here were the young Nationals forced to confront it head-on.
And confront it they did, with their most impressive rally of the season and arguably their best win in a very long time.
Behind clutch hits and aggressive baserunning from rookies Dylan Crews and Daylen Lile, the Nationals took down Duran, scoring the tying and winning runs en route to a 5-4 victory that left this ballpark stunned and left the visitors’ dugout in jubilation.
"This is what playoff baseball is all about," said Crews, who has seen the Nats go 27-26 in the games he's played this season, compared to 26-49 when he sat or was on the 60-day injured list. "If we want to get to where we want to get to, we have to play in environments like this. ... This is playoff baseball."
Trailing by a run when they came up to bat in the ninth, having already squandered opportunities with runners in scoring position each of the previous three innings, the Nats finally converted against one of the best closers in the sport. And they did it behind the efforts of two rookie outfielders.
Crews, who lost an eight-pitch battle against Duran just five days ago in a tight loss in D.C., jumpstarted this rally with a one-out double down the right field line, somehow managing to get to flamethrower's 102-mph fastball enough to keep it in fair territory.
"At the end of the day, you've just got to stay on the fastball," said Crews. "We were able to string some hits there and come back. It was an awesome win by everybody."
Moments later, Lile also went the other way on a 97-mph splitter, lining the ball to left for a single. Despite Brandon Marsh getting to the ball quickly, third base coach Ricky Gutierrez aggressively waved around Crews, a move that paid off when Marsh’s throw was a bit to the third base side of the plate and Crews was able to slide around the tag.
Lile then turned aggressive on the bases himself, stealing third to the surprise of catcher J.T. Realmuto, who misfired his throw to third, allowing Lile to come all the way around to score the go-ahead run in improbable fashion.
"It got real quiet, let me tell you," Lile said with a smile as he recalled that moment inside a sellout ballpark. "I was hearing it the whole game in the dugout. For everybody to boo me when I go up to the plate, and then be quiet when I cross home plate ... it was awesome."
"We were trying to get attention of everyone who got on second, that we could steal," interim manager Miguel Cairo said. "We're going to put pressure. We're going to play aggressive."
The Nationals still needed to close this one out, though. And with top relievers Jose A. Ferrer and Cole Henry unavailable after pitching the last two days, it was left-hander PJ Poulin not only pitching the eighth but the ninth as well for an improbable first career win that required the 29-year-old rookie to retire Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber for the final two outs with Bryce Harper looming in the on-deck circle.
"Just pure joy," said Poulin, who was claimed off waivers from the Tigers three weeks ago and now sports a 1.80 ERA in his first 10 big league appearances. "I'm a pretty competitive guy, probably like most of the guys in here. It felt really good to get that final out."
The Nationals had taken an early 3-0 lead on Riley Adams’ first-inning homer, only to give it back and then some on two late homers. It was Bryson Stott’s two-run shot off Cade Cavalli with two outs in the sixth that left this game tied. And it was Realmuto’s solo homer off Shinnosuke Ogasawara with two outs in the seventh that put Philadelphia ahead for the first time all night.
Ogasawara was handed the ball for the bottom of the seventh in a 3-3 game, yet another high-leverage situation for the Japanese left-hander, who surprisingly has handled these recent spots quite well. And he started the inning off with a bang, striking out both Schwarber and Harper with an assortment of breaking balls that left both lefty sluggers looking feeble at the plate.
Alas, the pesky three-batter minimum rule forced Ogasawara to also face Realmuto, and that encounter did not end well. The veteran catcher turned on a 3-2 changeup and sent it soaring to left field for the go-ahead homer, fully erasing the visitors’ encouraging top of the first.
The top of the first nearly turned disastrous for the Nationals, who came within an inch of having their first two batters of the game picked off first base. James Wood did get called out after a replay review; CJ Abrams was fortunate enough to not be called out on his subsequent review. (Thus did first base umpire and crew chief Cory Blaser twice have to announce he was wrong in a span of minutes. He added another four innings later, for good measure.)
From that near-disaster, though, the Nats discovered bliss. After Josh Bell walked to move Abrams up to second, Adams stepped to the plate and put together the kind of quality at-bat that has become more and more commonplace for the 29-year-old catcher. Fighting off multiple tough offerings from Taijuan Walker, he finally got a cutter over the plate and launched it to right-center for a three-run homer that left the big crowd at Citizens Bank Park booing.
It was Adams’ eighth homer of the season, six of them coming over his last 39 games, during which time he has delivered a .341 on-base percentage, .445 slugging percentage and .786 OPS to more than make up for the long-term loss of Keibert Ruiz to concussion.
Tonight’s homer came on the eighth pitch of Adams’ at-bat, the 28th pitch the Nationals made Walker throw to their first four batters of the game. All told, the Phillies right-hander needed 38 pitches just to complete the top of the first, leaving him to face an uphill climb the rest of the way.
The Phillies also made Cavalli work early on, but just as he did six nights prior, the rookie managed to work his way through it all.
He stranded the bases loaded in the first, inducing a fly ball to center out of Marsh. And though he did give up a run in the second, it was only possible because of Turner’s speed down the first base line to narrowly beat out what would’ve been a spectacular 4-6-3 double play started by Luis García Jr.
Cavalli continued to deal with traffic in all but one inning (the third) and he continued to hold the Phillies at bay, striking out Turner with a curveball in the fourth and hopping off the mound with some positive emotion.
"We just came in with the same plan, the plan to execute," said Cavalli, who tossed seven scoreless innings despite seven hits last weekend in D.C. "Stay in the zone and attack. I wasn't as sharp early on, but thankfully I was able to make an adjustment. Riley gave me a lot of confidence. Defense played great behind me."
Then came the critical sequence in the bottom of the sixth, which came to define Cavalli’s night. It included a one-out double by Nick Castellanos on a sinking liner that short-hopped Wood and bounded away from him, with the hustling Castellanos narrowly beating Wood’s throw to García at second base. Even so, Cavalli still was in position to get out of the inning unscathed with No. 9 hitter Bryson Stott at the plate and two out. Alas, he left a 96 mph fastball up and over the plate, and the left-handed Stott sent it flying to right field for the game-tying homer.
"I left it middle. He did what he was supposed to do with it," Cavalli said. "It was my mistake, and I've just got to be better in that situation."
That blast alone raised Cavalli’s ERA seven-tenths of a point. But he managed to finish off a quality start, and four starts into his season, the rookie still sports a 2.82 ERA and loads of promise.
Based on the events of the last week, that may apply to this young team as a whole.
"It was awesome for all of us," Lile said. "For that to be a back-and-forth game, and for it to be a packed house, that team's getting ready for postseason baseball ... for us to keep grinding, staying behind each other, it was awesome."
