The Nationals knew all along James Wood was going to strike out a lot. And truth be told, when you glance at baseball’s strikeout leaderboard, you see a bunch of names with serious star power: Kyle Schwarber, Rafael Devers, Cal Raleigh and Shohei Ohtani all rank in the top 10 this season. Most high-strikeout guys are also high-production guys.

At the top of the list, though, stands Wood, who tonight tied and then broke the Nats’ club record with his 199th and 200th strikeouts of the season.

Ah, but there's more to Wood’s game than whiffs and called third strikes. He may not be producing in the second half of the season the way he did in the first, but he still has the ability to impact ballgames by impacting the baseball with extreme force. And, as it turns out, by firing baseballs to the plate from his position in left field.

Sure enough, what did Wood do tonight after striking out in his first two at-bats? He doubled twice, each of them coming in key moments that helped the Nationals rally from three runs down to take a three-run lead against the Pirates. And then, just when it looked like Jose A. Ferrer was about to blow his first save opportunity since becoming the closer more than a month ago, Wood fired a perfect strike to the plate to nail the potential tying run in the top of the ninth, helping secure the Nationals' 6-5 victory.

"He does insane things I've never seen players do before," third baseman Brady House said of his fellow 22-year-old. "It's almost like, it's awesome that he got the out, but I wasn't surprised at all. It's James. He does things that you can't imagine sometimes." 

Wood was hardly alone in making the six late runs possible. The Nats got homers from House and Dylan Crews, plus a clutch two-run single from Josh Bell to cap a four-run bottom of the seventh.

But he was needed most in the field before this one was over. Ferrer saw his consecutive scoreless streak end at 15 2/3 innings on Nick Yorke's RBI single in the top of the ninth, then he nearly saw his consecutive saves streak end when he gave up a one-out single to left to Joey Bart with runners on second and third.

"Here we go," Wood said he thought to himself as it all played out. "You're just trying to get a good hop, so you can get an easy transfer and get the ball out quick."

Yorke easily scored the first run to make it 6-5, and Alexander Canario (who had walked and taken second on a wild pitch) came screaming around third, determined to tie the game. Wood, though, saved the day by firing off a 93.1-mph, one-hop throw to Jorge Alfaro at the plate to nail Canario, firing up the home dugout and the home crowd.

"In that moment, all I could really control was doing my best to make a good throw," he said.

Ferrer then quickly got the final out on a fly ball to right to finish the game and ultimately secure his ninth straight save, with Crews heading straight to congratulate his left fielder for making it possible.

"That pretty much won us the game right there," Crews said. "Just giving him some props. That was an awesome moment right there. It shows we're never out of the fight. We're always one pitch away, one play away from winning the ballgame."

It was hard to overlook Wood’s up-and-down night with the bat, because this one offered up all the pertinent evidence of the good and the bad he brings with him to the plate.

Wood got the two strikeouts out of the way early tonight, tying and then setting the new club record. Strikeout No. 199 came in the bottom of the first, after he got ahead in the count 3-0 against Mitch Keller before taking a fastball for strike one, swinging through another for strike two and then taking a full-count sweeper over the heart of the plate.

Strikeout No. 200 came in the bottom of the fourth, when Wood fouled off a sweeper, fouled off a changeup and then swung through a 94 mph fastball well above the zone. He trudged back to the dugout, having eclipsed Adam Dunn’s single-season club record set in 2010. And with 15 games still to go, he has a real shot at breaking Mark Reynolds’ major-league record of 223, set in 2009 with the Diamondbacks.

"It's part of the game. Tony Gwynn struck out ... well, obviously I do a little more," Wood said with a laugh, citing the Hall of Famer who struck out only 434 times in a 20-year career. "It happened. It's part of baseball. Bouncing back is part of baseball, too. You've just got to find adjustments to make and move on."

As interim manager Miguel Cairo has said, though, Wood does still have the ability to make a positive difference. And though it didn’t come in the form of a home run tonight, his 115.4-mph double to center helped make the Nationals’ two-run bottom of the sixth possible, knocking Keller from the game.

The rally was ignited three batters earlier by House, who connected on Keller’s first-pitch slider for the fourth home run of his young career, the first hit to the opposite field. After CJ Abrams hit a one-out single to right, Wood drilled his double over a stunned Oneil Cruz’s head in center field, bringing Bell to the plate with two runners in scoring position.

Alas, Bell hit the ball right back to the mound, where reliever Evan Sisk caught it and then caught Abrams in a rundown between third base and the plate, with Wood unable to advance from second as that was all playing out. He would eventually score on Sisk’s wild pitch, but the Nationals couldn’t get the tying run home when Luis García Jr. struck out.

No problem, because there was an even bigger rally to come in the bottom of the seventh. Crews delivered the eventual game-winning hit when he drove a first-pitch fastball from Kyle Nicolas to right-center for his second homer this week.

"Anytime you're hitting the ball opposite field with authority, it just shows you're in the right path and the right timing and everything," he said. "I'm getting the ball into the air a little bit, as well. That's a good sign." 

Wood came through a bit later in the inning, ripping a 104.2-mph double down the right field line, putting two runners in scoring position for Bell, same as the previous inning. And this time Bell stayed on an 0-2 slider and sent the ball back up the middle for a two-run single that extended the lead to 6-3.

The Pirates scored their three runs off Brad Lord, who faced a healthy amount of traffic during his six innings but was only burned a couple of times. The rookie escaped jams in the second and fourth, the latter thanks to back-to-back standout defensive plays by House at third base and Crews in right field.

"Some awesome defense," he said. "That catch by Crews, that saves some runs right there."

"As soon as it comes off the bat, your first reaction is: 'Oh, gosh. Please get there,'" he said of Crews' leaping grab of Ji Hwan Bae's drive to the wall. "And then as I saw him getting closer and closer, I was just like: 'Oh, my god. What a catch.' That was unbelievable. I've got to tip my cap to that."

Lord did give up a run in the third on three straight hits, then two more in the fifth when he put a 3-2 changeup right over the plate for Spencer Horwitz, who belted it into the right field bullpen for a two-run homer. Lord would depart with a quality start on 88 pitches, but he would depart in line for the loss.

Thanks to the late offensive - and defensive - exploits of his teammates, Lord happily accepted a no-decision to go along with a team win at night’s end.

"Seeing (Wood) throw a guy out like that, I was jumping up and down and yelling in here," the pitcher said. "It's awesome. It's a huge morale boost for everybody."