Nats find unconventional formula to beat Braves again

At this point, it's clear the Nationals aren't going to win ballgames in 2020 in the manner we've all been accustomed to for the better part of the last decade. This current team can't win on the broad shoulders of an elite rotation, nor does it currently have the power bats to outslug a lineup like the Braves possess.

Tonight, the Nats proved they can do it differently. They can overcome another short and disappointing start. They can score 10 runs without benefit of a homer. And they can squeeze everything they've got out of an overtaxed bullpen to walk out of Truist Park with a 10-4 victory over the first-place Braves.

Thanks to Kyle McGowin's 2 1/3 hitless innings in relief of Erick Fedde, a bunch of manufactured runs off the bats of Howie Kendrick, Kurt Suzuki, Luis García and Brock Holt and a shutdown job by the back end of the stretched-thin 'pen, the Nationals took their second of three in Atlanta and now have a chance to win the four-game series Sunday afternoon.

Who saw all that coming?

"I love what we did with our bats today, so let's continue to do that," manager Davey Martinez said during his postgame Zoom session with reporters, taking a pause before adding: "It would be nice to hit a homer every now and then, though."

After needing 203 pitches over 12 1/3 innings from his bullpen the previous two days and nights, Martinez desperately needed length from Fedde tonight. Alas, length is just not something the Nationals manager has been able to count on from the majority of his rotation this season.

Pitchers not named Max Scherzer or Patrick Corbin are averaging a scant 4.12 innings per start in 2020. And those pitchers have accounted for 23 of the Nats' 38 games to date. Want to pinpoint just one primary reason for the team's disappointing record? There it is.

And Fedde continued the trend tonight, lasting just 3 2/3 innings, throwing 92 pitches and serving up three home runs. Ronald Acuña Jr. opened the evening with his fourth homer of the series and 18th career leadoff homer. Travis d'Arnaud added a two-run blast to center in the third. And then Adam Duvall led off the fourth with a ball down the left field line that cleared the short fence.

Each of the homers came off pitches up in the zone, a distinct no-no for the sinkerball-relying Fedde. And that once again put added strain on a Nationals bullpen that has been strained for weeks.

"It was derfinitely on my mind tonight," Fedde said of the pressure to provide innings at last. "Especially with (Friday's) doubleheader and the other guys who have thrown a lot ... a lot of guys have probably thrown three out of four nights. You want to go deep for them. And unfortunately I had a lot of long at-bats and wasn't able to do that."

Salvation, though, sometimes comes from unexpected sources, and tonight it came in the form of McGowin. The 28-year-old right-hander was called up from the alternate training site in Fredericksburg earlier in the week when the team needed a fresh arm. And when he finally entered tonight in relief of Fedde, he put that fresh arm to good use.

Over the course of 2 1/3 hitless innings, McGowin retired seven of the eight batters he faced, the lone exception a leadoff walk of Dansby Swanson in the bottom of the seventh. McGowin struck out four of those batters, going to the well with a devastating slider that had the Braves lineup flummoxed.

"I'm doing something right, finally," joked McGowin, who entered with an 8.75 ERA in 12 career appearances but emerged tonight with his first big-league win. "I just want to keep doing what I'm doing."

"We needed that," Martinez said. "Honestly, I didn't want to use a lot of guys in our bullpen."

By the time he departed, the Nationals had staked McGowin to a 5-4 lead, thanks to some sustained, effective small ball from a lineup lacking in power at the moment.

They scratched out two quick runs in the top of the first via a hit-by-pitch, two walks, a run-scoring grounder and a bloop RBI single to right by Carter Kieboom, a much-needed welcome-back hit for the rookie third baseman who was just called back up following a brief stint in Fredericksburg.

"Did I mean to hit it right there? Probably not," Kieboom said. "But it's definitely great to get an RBI with a two-out situation. At this point, every run is huge. We need RBIs wherever we can get them, especially with two outs. Those are the biggest ones. It was definitely a nice relief to get a hit in your first at-bat."

They added another in the fifth with a pair of singles and the first error by a Braves middle infielder this season (second baseman Johan Camargo). With three runs in five innings off Max Fried, the Nationals knocked out one of the National League's best lefties and got the game into the Atlanta bullpen.

And when the bottom of their lineup got to another lefty, Tyler Matzek, in the top of the sixth, they gave themselves the lead. Kieboom opened the frame drawing a walk, then aggressively went first-to-third on the second of Holt's four hits in the game. Garcia drove in the tying run with a scorched grounder past a diving Camargo at second base. And Victor Robles, re-energized by his weekend move into the leadoff spot, managed to drop a bunt in front of first baseman Freddie Freeman for a well-executed safety squeeze and the go-ahead RBI.

"I told the guys: Our lineup right now, without (Juan) Soto and some of the big boys in there, we've got to try to manufacture runs," Martinez said. "We safety squeezed again tonight. We put some running plays on. We tried some hit-and-runs. We tried a bunch of different things."

Then throw in five - yes, five - insurance runs in the top of the ninth, and what was shaping up to be a tense finish to this game instead morphed into a laugher for the visitors.

It might not have been the formula they typically use. But these days, it's taking some atypical developments for the Nationals to win ballgames. And they'll take them however they can get them.