CHICAGO – For eight innings, they did next to nothing at the plate. Three hits. Zero walks. No life. The Nationals looked ready to leave Wrigley Field with a loss in the series finale and head south to Miami.
And then they sprung back to life. In a big way. To pull off perhaps their most unexpected win of the season.
With a furious five-run, top-of-the-ninth rally that included clutch homers from Robert Hassell III and Josh Bell, the Nationals stormed back to beat the Cubs, 6-3 and send the Wrigley Field faithful who turned out to celebrate Sammy Sosa’s induction into the team’s Hall of Fame home devastated.
The Nats gave no indication all afternoon they had anything like this in them. They barely scored one run through eight innings against Chicago’s seemingly effective bullpen game and looked ready to call it a day. Until it all turned in the ninth.
Hassell ignited the rally with a leadoff, opposite-field homer off Cubs closer Daniel Palencia, trimming the deficit to 3-2 and bringing some life back to the visitors’ dugout. CJ Abrams followed with a perfectly placed dribbler down the third base line for an easy single, and James Wood stayed patient enough to draw a walk and move Abrams into scoring position with nobody out.
To the plate stepped Bell, who wasn’t in the starting lineup but was now pinch-hitting for catcher Riley Adams. And the veteran slugger delivered his biggest hit of the year, taking Palencia deep to left-center for a three-run homer that gave his team the lead and set off a joyous trip around the bases.
And they weren’t done. Moments after Bell’s homer, Daylen Lile produced his third triple of the weekend and later scored on Brady House’s second sacrifice fly of the afternoon, completing the five-run rally and creating a three-run cushion heading to the bottom of the ninth.
With ample time to warm up, Jose A. Ferrer then entered from the bullpen and notched his seventh save in as many opportunities since replacing Kyle Finnegan as closer after the trade deadline, stranding two runners on base.
It was a stunning turn of events, given how lifeless the Nationals looked for eight innings. They went down quickly and quietly in the top of the first against opener Drew Pomeranz, who needed only eight pitches despite recording a pair of strikeouts in the inning. Colin Rea then took over for the top of the second as the “bulk guy” and proceeded to toss 5 1/3 innings on only 61 pitches.
The Nationals’ lone run off Rea came in the top of the fifth, when they got a single from Lile and a double from Luis García Jr. that briefly got stuck in the ivy in the right-center field wall, preventing Lile from being allowed to score from first. No problem, because House followed with a sacrifice fly to bring Lile home.
But with a chance to also drive home García from third, Dylan Crews struck out to end the inning. That wound up being the last time the Nats put a runner on base until the ninth.
As impressive as he looked in his major league debut against the Marlins in D.C. to begin the week, Andrew Alvarez had to know the challenge would be greater today against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. The rookie wasn’t as sharp as he was last time out, but he still found a way to be effective against a superior lineup.
His one real mistake came on his third pitch of the second inning, a fastball to Carson Kelly that wound up in the left field bleachers despite a northerly wind that threatened to knock down fly balls hit in that general direction. (Kelly took Mason Thompson deep later in the game for his second homer.) He also walked a pair later that inning, driving up his pitch count and perhaps guaranteeing he wouldn’t go too deep in this game.
Even so, Alvarez kept things under control, posting zeros in both the third and fourth innings, giving himself a chance to take the mound for the fifth with a pitch count of 73. At which point he got into his first legitimate jam of the afternoon.
A walk of No. 9 hitter Kevin Alcántara preceded a double just down the third base line by Nico Hoerner, putting two runners in scoring position with one out. With the infield drawn in, Alvarez did get Ian Happ to pound a ground ball right at shortstop Abrams, who fired to the plate to nail Alcántara on a bang-bang play that held up on replay review.
Interim manager Miguel Cairo decided not to push the rookie starter any further. He pulled Alvarez at 87 pitches and asked Clayton Beeter to get out of a first-and-third, two-out jam. Beeter, who hadn’t surrendered a hit in his last nine innings of work, saw the streak come to an end at the worst possible time when Seiya Suzuki sent a sharp single through the left side of the infield to bring home the go-ahead run.
Thus was Alvarez charged with two runs over 4 2/3 innings. A dominant effort it was not, but the kid has nevertheless allowed a total of two runs on four hits over the first 9 2/3 innings of his career, which is nothing to scoff about.