Fedde fans nine over five frames, Nats win second in row (updated)

Erick Fedde has struggled through outings where he couldn't seem to harness any confidence. He'd get behind hitters, have to throw a hittable fastball and pay the price.

But in the early going of Saturday's start against the Diamondbacks, he got the feel for his changeup and used it masterfully. He also mixed his pitches to keep Arizona hitters off-balance and got on a roll.

Fedde matched a career high with nine strikeouts in a five-inning stint and the Nationals beat the Diamondbacks 6-2 on Saturday afternoon, posting a second consecutive victory for the first time this season.

"With Fedde, the biggest thing that works for him is when he gets his confidence going," catcher Yan Gomes said via Zoom in a postgame session with reporters. "You can tell he's not trying to nibble, not wasting pitches. That was great fun to see. Whenever you see Fedde striking out a lot of guys, I feel like that's from his confidence within his first two or three pitches where he's getting guys guessing - in or out, soft or hard. Whenever you see that happening, when you see his confidence start to go up, you call anything you want, knowing he's going to make good pitches."

The right-hander was eventually done in by a high pitch count, but before leaving after 95 pitches, he allowed a run on five hits with one walk. The nine strikeouts equaled his career best over 5 2/3 innings in a 3-1 win at Philadelphia on Sept. 11, 2018.

"I think I had a few punchouts in the first inning on changeups, which you know is a big feel pitch," Fedde said. "And when you have that early, I think it's a good sign. It especially leads to guys not being able to really sit on the fastball too much."

The Nats, who have won four of six games, got four innings of one-hit relief from Sam Clay, Kyle Finnegan, Tanner Rainey, Wander Suero and Kyle McGowin.

With Fedde keeping the D-backs in check, the Nats bats woke up to post 15 hits, including Gomes' first homer of the season. Gomes drove in two runs on three hits.

"The approach is always the same, try to have good at-bats," he said. "... It's nothing crazy. It's just little tweaks that we do throughout the season. Try not to let it escalate and try to nip it in the bud when we can."

Trea Turner and Kyle Schwarber also had three hits each for the Nationals. Ryan Zimmerman added a pinch-hit solo homer.

Fedde might have gone deeper except for his elevated pitch count. But where he's sometimes had problems putting opposing hitters away in two-strike counts, he excelled in those situations against the D-backs, posting his first victory since last Sept. 18, when he one-hit the Marlins over six scoreless frames.

"He's got really good stuff. He's got major league stuff," manager Davey Martinez said of the righty. "The question we always run into is whether he can throw enough strikes or not. When he does, he can get outs - and he can get to those five or six innings, maybe seven innings. Like I said, he's done well these last couple outings. We need to keep him there. The biggest thing is consistency."

In the early going, Fedde was doing a masterful job of mixing up his pitches and keeping the Diamondbacks guessing. He got swinging third strikes on his changeup, sinker and curve, totaling five whiffs through two one-hit innings. But he also threw 38 pitches in those frames, meaning he was threatening to get the bullpen up early unless he showed more pitch efficiency.

"He got ahead of hitters," Martinez said. "He threw a lot of pitches. We've talked about when he goes ahead 0-2 to kinda finish in three or four pitches. But he battled. His fastball was really good. His cutter was really good and he threw his changeup when he needed. He battled today and he got us through five innings and I thought it was awesome."

The Nationals took a 1-0 lead with one out in the second when Gomes lofted Luke Weaver's 1-1 four-seamer into the left field stands for his first homer of the season.

Fedde surrendered a one-out single to Tim Locastro in the third, but he was caught stealing on a 2-5 putout of Gomes' one-hop throw with a shifted Starlin Castro applying the tag. That ended Locastro's string of 29 consecutive successful steals to start a career, a major league record. Locastro dislocated his left pinky finger on the slide, exited the game and is likely headed for a stint on the injured list.

"I kinda feel bad that I did. ... Hopefully he gets a speedy recovery," Gomes said, noting the injury that forced Locastro to depart the game. "The kid can run. He's a good base stealer. We put in a lot of (pickoffs) - we almost picked him off. From my standpoint, it's try not to do too much. The tendency's a lot when you got a super fast runner like that, you want to do something that's not you and you end up air-mailing it."

Moments later, Kole Calhoun deposited a 93 mph sinker into the seats in right-center, tying the game on his first homer of the year.

With a 1-2-3 fourth inning on 15 pitches, Fedde had thrown 75 pitches through four frames. In the bottom of the inning, the Nats took the lead.

Castro started off with a sharp grounder that skipped past shortstop Nick Ahmed's backhand attempt and whistled into left-center for a double. Andrew Stevenson then fought back from an 0-2 count to line a run-scoring double into right field for a 2-1 lead. Gomes then connected on an inside-out swing, going opposite field to right for an RBI single. After Jordy Mercer shot a single through the hole at second, Fedde moved the runners up with a sacrifice bunt and Turner's infield single loaded the bases. Juan Soto's sac fly made it 4-1.

"It's awesome," Fedde said. "Anytime you can pitch with the lead, it makes everything a lot better. It leads to more confidence."

Eduardo Escobar's solo shot off Clay in the sixth got the Diamondbacks within 4-2.

In the Nationals seventh, Schwarber led off with a double and came home on Castro's single.

Zimmerman hit Taylor Clarke's first pitch of the eighth into the home bullpen. The solo homer made it 6-2.

Suero started the ninth, but left with an undisclosed injury to his left side after walking Eduardo Escobar and getting ahead of Nick Ahmed with an 0-2 count. Martinez said after the game that Suero was undergoing an MRI and that the Nationals would know more by Sunday.