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MIAMI – The National League East standings still show the fifth-place Nationals trailing the third-place Marlins by 5 1/2 games. If you’ve watched the five games played between these two clubs over the last eight days, you would never believe that.
Based strictly on these recent head-to-head matchups, it’s impossible to view the Nats as the inferior team. They have so thoroughly dominated Miami while winning five straight, it doesn’t compute that they’ve got the lesser record over the entirety of the season.
Tonight’s 7-5 victory, featuring yet another Josh Bell homer and one of Mitchell Parker’s best starts of the year before things got a bit hairy during the bottom of the ninth, was the latest example. The Nationals have now won these five consecutive head-to-head matchups by the combined score of 39-19. They’re also now 7-1 in September, having also taken two of three from the playoff-contending Cubs over the weekend in Chicago.
"It's not always going to be a masterpiece," interim manager Miguel Cairo said. "But they battled. We got good at-bats. We scored some runs. The most important thing is we got a W. We've just got to keep going and keep playing the way we've been playing."
Offense has been at the forefront of this recent surge, but tonight the Nats also got a long-awaited pitching gem from Parker.
The left-hander allowed two runs (one via Joey Wiemer’s second-inning homer, one an inherited runner after he departed) over 7 2/3 innings, keeping his pitch count low enough to give him the opportunity to take the mound in the eighth for only the second time this season.
Roughly 2 1/2 weeks ago, Parker looked lost, the not-so-proud owner of a 6.01 ERA while going 0-5 in August. But with three straight quality outings, the last two against Miami, he has lowered that ERA to 5.69 and earned his first win since July 26 in the process.
"It's good to build good momentum," Parker said. "We're building off of each one, and hopefully improving something in all of them. It's a good confidence-booster to build off of."
The bullpen did make things way more interesting than they needed to be tonight, with Cole Henry allowing three runs in the bottom of the ninth, forcing Jose A. Ferrer to record the final out with the winning run at the plate after failing to cover first base on a grounder to the right side that could've ended the game.
"You have to stay for 27 outs," Cairo said. "Sometimes, it's going to happen. But we've just got to play 27 outs, nine innings. The other team is always going to have one inning where they have all the energy, and you want to shut it out. We got Ferrer, and he did it. He shut it down."
The night was already off to a rousing start, the Nationals jumping out to a 3-0 lead on Bell’s latest blast, when everything came to a screeching halt on a play nobody ever wants to see. With one out in the bottom of the second, Miami’s Eric Wagaman fouled off a pitch, the ball catching Riley Adams squarely in the groin.
Adams immediately went down in pain, and though he was able to get up to his feet and attempt to walk it off, a lengthy delay wasn’t enough to alleviate his condition to the point he could continue. He walked off the field alongside Cairo and director of athletic training Paul Lessard, hoping for encouraging news once he could be examined in the clubhouse.
The news after the game was indeed encouraging.
"He was hit pretty good, but he's fine," said Cairo, who added Adams will probably sit Wednesday night but will hopefully be back in the lineup for Thursday night's series finale.
The Nationals already are without catchers Keibert Ruiz (who is in town after having his minor league rehab assignment cut short with a recurrence of concussion symptoms) and Drew Millas (who is out for the season with a fractured and dislocated finger). That left veteran Jorge Alfaro, signed last week after not playing in the majors for two years, as the only healthy catcher on tonight’s roster. It also left first baseman/designated hitter Andrés Chaparro donning a mitt and mask to catch Parker’s warmup pitches prior to the third inning. (Alfaro would actually take a foul ball off the groin as well with two outs in the ninth but was able to finish the game.)
The Nats survived the catching scare thanks to their latest bruising offensive performance against the Marlins pitching staff. One night after homering four times en route to a 15-7 rout, they again put a hurting on Miami’s starter, scoring six runs off rookie Adam Mazur.
And they wasted no time doing it. They immediately put pressure on Mazur with CJ Abrams’ leadoff double and James Wood’s follow-up single. That brought Bell to the plate looking to continue his torrid 72-hour stretch, and boy did the big guy do that, launching another homer into the loanDepot Park upper deck for a 3-0 lead.
Bell has always had a penchant for red-hot runs at the plate, but this current one might rival anything he’s ever done. Beginning with his game-winning homer Sunday at Wrigley Field, he just completed an 11-inning stretch in which he went 6-for-8 with four homers and 12 RBIs. (He added a 13th RBI with a sacrifice fly in the sixth inning, one of two fly balls off his bat that reached the warning track tonight.)
"He was talking to one of our teammates and figured out a little something before he hit the home run in Chicago," outfielder Daylen Lile said. "Whatever he's been doing has been working."
As great as Bell has been in recent days, the Nationals have been getting offensive production from up and down their lineup. Tonight, that included their surprise No. 4 hitter: Lile. The rookie outfielder has earned his way into a prime batting position, and he rewarded Cairo for the assignment tonight with an absolute laser of a home run off the façade of the upper deck in the top of the fifth.
Lile’s fifth homer of the season raised his OPS to .781, only three points behind Abrams.
"The home run was awesome, but me hitting the ball to center field, using the big part of the field, really shows that my swing is in a good place right now," said Lile, now batting .432 over his last nine games. "The routine I'm doing is working. I've just got to stay with it and keep grinding every day."
