Nats swept out of Bronx by another blowout loss (updated)

NEW YORK – The Nationals can’t get out of New York City fast enough. They entered this afternoon’s finale against the Yankees 0-5 in the Big Apple this year after being swept by the Mets in a three-game series at Citi Field in June and dropping the first two games of this set at Yankee Stadium.

And they will remain winless in New York until their next trip to Queens in September after an 11-2 blowout loss, their third straight to get swept by the Yankees and their fifth straight loss overall.

Just about everything that could have gone wrong for the Nationals today did. They couldn’t manufacture runs. They couldn’t prevent the Yankees from scoring. And they suffered injuries along the way, adding salt to an already wide-open wound.

If the power differential between these two teams wasn’t on display enough earlier this week, it definitely was in this finale.

The Yankees entered today with a major league-leading 219 home runs, while the Nats only had a measly 125 for the third-fewest. New York had already hit four to score eight of their 15 runs over the first two games. Washington had scored four of their six runs on one swing, Jacob Young’s ninth-inning grand slam Monday night.

So when Trent Grisham greeted Cade Cavalli with a leadoff homer in the first, the tone was already set for a long day at the ballpark for the Nationals.

“I gotta tell you, that's a really good team," said interim manager Miguel Cairo. "They can hit, like I said. They can hit, and if you make a mistake, they make you pay. We just got beat, simple as that. We got beat. They got good pitching, good hitting. You gotta tip your cap against that team. You gotta reset, take the day off and go home and keep fighting against Tampa.”

Cavalli didn’t retire any of the first four batters he faced, loading the bases after the leadoff longball on two singles and a hit-batter. But he escaped further damage with two strikeouts and a hard-hit lineout to third baseman Brady House.

The right-hander seemed to settle in from there, retiring six straight batters, four via strikeout, after loading the bases in the first.

But the third inning was an absolute disaster for the Nats.

Cavalli didn’t retire the first five batters of the frame, giving up a single, a double, a walk and two home runs. The first homer came from Aaron Judge, the slugger’s 41st of the season, which was a two-run shot following Ben Rice’s leadoff single. Then Cody Bellinger sent Cavalli’s next pitch out of the yard to go back-to-back.

“They're good hitters," Cavalli said. "Made a couple mistakes and they hit the ball out.

“I think they adjusted to me living on the outer half. So I got to make an adjustment and get them off the plate, get them uncomfy. I didn't do that today.”

The sixth batter out of seven reached against Cavalli on a catcher’s interference call against Drew Millas. But what was worse was Millas having to exit the game with a fracture and dislocation of his left second finger, leaving Riley Adams, who was in the starting lineup as the designated hitter, to get behind the plate and the Nats to forfeit the DH for the remainder of the game.

“Riley's been swinging the bat good. I wanted a right-hander against Fried. And sometimes it goes like that," Cairo said of his decision to put both catchers in the lineup. "I cannot read the future, but I wanted to have a right-hander that has been hitting good in the lineup.”

Cavalli then served up a three-run homer to Ryan McMahon to finally end his miserable outing. But Shinnosuke Ogasawara fared no better in relief of the starter.

The Japanese left-hander needed 41 pitches to record the last two outs of the third, giving up a home run to Rice, two singles and two walks before finally closing the frame.

To recap the third, the Yankees sent 15 batters to the plate, scoring nine runs on three singles, one double, one catcher's interference, three walks, one stolen base and four home runs.

Cavalli finished the day after 2 ⅓ innings with eight hits, eight runs (seven earned), one walk, four strikeouts, four home runs and one hit-batter on 76 pitches, 48 strikes.

“I just got to be better," he said. "I think I got to throw inside a little bit more. I didn't do that a whole lot today, and they were getting pretty comfy on the outer half of the plate.”

Between Cavalli and Ogasawara, the Nats threw 77 pitches in the third inning, the second-most in a single frame by a team since at least 2000, per MLB.com. The Marlins threw 91 on June 27, 2003 in the first inning in Boston. And per TruMedia, the 77 pitches were the most the Nationals/Expos franchise has thrown in an inning since pitch counts were kept in 1988.

Needing at least one more inning out of Ogasawara, the reliever actually took an at-bat in the top of the fifth, striking out on three pitches, the last one being a 72 mph curveball right over the plate.

“I just didn't want to use a pinch-hitter," Cairo said of letting his pitcher hit while already operating with a short bench since Daylen Lile was still unavailable due to an illness. "We only had three guys on the bench. Lile has been sick, so I didn't want to use (a pinch-hitter). I just told him not to swing, just to stand up in there.”

But unfortunately, the Yankees’ damage was not done there.

Austin Wells greeted Ogasawara with a leadoff home run in the fourth to make it an 11-0 Yankees lead, sending the Bronx Zoo crowd of 35,501 into a roar. And with their sixth homer of the game, the Yankees had exactly 100 more homers than the Nationals on the season, five days before September.

Needless to say, the Nationals' offense was not as impressive.

Max Fried was perfect into the fourth inning before Adams’ two-out, seven-pitch walk. The Yankees left-hander then carried a no-hit bid into the sixth. But that was broken up by three consecutive singles from Young, CJ Abrams and James Wood to finally put the Nats on the board. Even still, Fried cruised through his seven innings on 94 pitches.

“He's tough," Wood said of Fried. "Just the command. The ability to get strike one, strike two. Mixes his pitches well, attacks the zone. He didn't make too many mistakes.”

Over the three games in this series, the Yankees hit 10 home runs. The Nationals hit five extra-base hits, with Andrés Chaparro adding a solo homer in the ninth inning of today’s loss. So it was no surprise the Yankees outscored the Nats 26-8, with 17 of their runs coming via the longball.

“Obviously not how we wanted today to go. But I mean, they're one of the best teams in baseball when they're swinging the bats like that," Wood said. "It's just that they're a good team, so we just don't have the luxury of coming out and starting out slow against them. And yeah, they just took advantage of that.”

With a month left in the season, it’s not too early to wonder how the Nationals will add power in 2026, which clearly remains a high priority for whoever is in charge of the roster this offseason. But in the short-term, they need to figure out how put this rough stretch behind them.

“We've been playing really good," Cairo said. "Just because we lost against the Yankees, that doesn't mean that we hit rock bottom. We got a really good team and they've been playing their butt off. It's not rock bottom here.”

“We got an off-day tomorrow. So just gotta be able to wipe the slate clean," Wood said. "Just kind of forget about the past three games and just try to bounce back and start with a win in the next game.”