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BALTIMORE – A ballgame that had already defied conventional wisdom in countless ways for eight innings of course came down to a most unconventional conclusion in the ninth.
On a night in which MacKenzie Gore was simultaneously hittable and unhittable, on a night in which neither team could score many runs despite one team more than tripling the other team’s hit total, on a night in which the Nationals found themselves forced to play Nasim Nuñez in center field, it was Nuñez who found a way to produce the decisive run in a 4-3 win over the Orioles with his legs.
With two outs in the ninth, Nuñez hustled down the line to beat out a chopper to first, and José Tena astutely raced around to score from second base while a bewildered Félix Bautista scrambled unsuccessfully to try to throw him out at the plate.
"It's about the hunger. It's about the passion," Nuñez said. "We're fighting every single pitch, every single inning. No matter who's on the mound, we're going to get him."
Nuñez, the 26th man on the roster who got the start at second base with Luis García Jr. just returning from paternity leave, somehow found himself playing the outfield for the first time as a professional when Davey Martinez had García pinch-hit for Jacob Young in the top of the seventh, leaving the Nats without any more natural outfielders.
No problem. Still using his infielder's glove, Nuñez made a nice play to track down a sinking liner in right-center. And more importantly, he showed off his blazing speed when it counted most at the plate.
With Tena (who walked and then took second on a groundout) in scoring position with two outs in the ninth, Nuñez hit a chopper to first that should’ve been the final out of the inning. But he busted down the line all the way and managed to narrowly beat Bautista’s foot to the bag. And before the Baltimore closer could compose himself to make the throw to the plate, Tena came all the way around to score and give the Nationals their first lead in a weird ballgame.
Nuñez's mindset when he made contact?
"I've got to get there before him," he said. "Plain and simple, we needed baserunners. We had life. We just needed to do something, anything. And it worked out."
Kyle Finnegan then overcame yet another leadoff single in the bottom of the ninth to record his 14th save in 16 attempts, aided by Keibert Ruiz’s nice throw to nail Jackson Holliday trying to steal second and Nuñez (naturally) snagging the final out of the game on a fly ball to center.
"Honestly, I was thinking it was going to happen. But I was like, nah, that would be crazy," said Nuñez, who caught the first out of the game with a diving catch at second base. "And it happened, and I was like: Yeah, it's crazy. I'm just glad it came to me. I was telling myself: 'You're going to catch this ball, and it's going to be game.'"
Stymied once again by an opposing starter, the Nationals once again had to rely on late offense to mount a comeback. They managed to get it thanks to a pair of big hits by James Wood, each of them driving in the game-tying run.
Wood’s sixth-inning RBI single to center made this a 2-2 game. His eighth-inning 421-foot moonshot to center made it a 3-3 game with a thunderous bang. That no-doubt blast off lefty Keegan Akin was the 22-year-old’s 12th homer of the season, further bolstering his growing case for the first All-Star selection of his young career.
"I kind of go up there and don't go: 'Aw dang, another lefty,'" said Wood, who now owns a sparkling .909 OPS vs. southpaws, four points higher than his mark vs. right-handers. "I was just trying to be selective, just get a good pitch to hit."
The Nats needed a lot out of their bullpen because Gore couldn’t make it out of the bottom of the fourth. How to explain his bizarre start? Consider this, for starters: No pitcher in major league history had ever before allowed 10 hits while recording nine strikeouts without completing at least four innings. Then consider he did all that while allowing only two runners to cross the plate.
Eleven of the 23 batters the Orioles sent to the plate against Gore never made contact, nine of them striking out while two of them drew a walk. The 12 batters who did put the ball in play, though, went an astonishing 10-for-12 in those at-bats. And both outs required tremendous defensive plays, one by Nuñez and one by center fielder Jacob Young.
"I think they hit some balls hard," Gore said. "There were also some weird hits, too. Maybe there were some balls over the middle of the plate. Maybe they saw it and went after it and swung hard. Sometimes when you swing hard, you hit it hard. We'll probably get under the hood a little bit and see what's going on. But I thought I threw the ball well. But we've got to go look and figure out what happened, because we don't need that happening again."
Because of his ability to miss bats, Gore was able to get himself out of jams in each of his first three innings. He struck out a pair to leave the bases loaded in the first. He struck out three in a row to leave a runner on second in the second. And he struck out two more to leave the bases loaded again in the third, though only after Baltimore pushed across a pair of runs on four hits and a walk.
But all those escape acts came at a cost: a monstrous pitch count. Gore took the mound for the bottom of the fourth already at 72 pitches, knowing he needed a quick frame to have any shot at returning for the fifth.
He didn’t get that quick frame. The Orioles once again loaded the bases via two singles and a 10-pitch walk drawn by Ryan O’Hearn that proved Gore’s undoing. His pitch count already 102 in less than four complete innings, he was pulled in favor of Cole Henry, who was tasked with saving the day for Gore by stranding three inherited runners.
The rookie managed to pull that off, striking out Ramón Urías on a borderline 3-2 fastball. And so the deficit remained a mere 2-1 despite all the traffic Gore and Henry had to deal with on the bases.
"They attacked the zone and got big outs," Martinez said of his entire bullpen, which allowed only one unearned run over 5 1/3 innings. "Henry, I can't say enough: Bases loaded, got a big strikeout there."
By keeping the damage to a minimum, the Nationals pitching staff bought time for the Nationals lineup to overcome what has become a nightly ordeal trying to get anything going against an opposing starter. That’s been the case for the last week, and it once again was the case tonight, the eighth consecutive time the Nats have failed to score more than two runs off the opposing starter. And those eight starters aren’t exactly a who’s who of major league aces: Erick Fedde, Andre Pallante, Miles Mikolas, Grant Holmes, Spencer Schwellenbach, Bryce Elder, AJ Smith-Shawver and Cade Povich.
It was more of the same tonight against Povich, who picked up right where he left off in a similar start last month in D.C. The lefty gave up a second-inning solo homer to Nathaniel Lowe, but that’s all he gave up through five innings in which the Nats managed only one other hit and two walks.
They finally pushed across a second run in the top of the sixth, aided in large part by Nuñez, who drew a walk, then stole second and made it all the way to third when Povich’s pitch got past catcher Adley Rutschman and rolled to the backstop. Even so, with two outs and first base open, Baltimore manager Brandon Hyde could’ve intentionally walked Wood and taken his chances with Ruiz. Instead, he pitched to the best hitter on the team and paid the price when Wood ripped a 101 mph RBI single up the middle to tie the game, 2-2.
"Sometimes, that's just how the game works," Wood said. "I think sometimes we just see the bullpen arms better. We got a couple across against the starter. But ideally, we'd like to get some more earlier, make our jobs a little easier later in the game."
