Tonight was the long awaited debut of Reynaldo Lopez who gave up a home run to the first batter he faced in his MLB career. After a 3-run 1st inning, we started to see some of the ‘stuff’ from Lopez we were hoping for. In 4 2/3 innings, Lopez gave up 6 earned runs which was real ugly, but he had an eye-popping 9 strikeouts in those 4 2/3 innings and dazzled with a knee buckling curveball, a changeup that tumbled, a tight slider, and fastballs that sizzled near 99mph.
Lopez’s fastball averaged 96.6 mph with his maximum velocity clocked at 98.6. You can see an impressive pitcher that got lost behind a bad overall outing which included some bad luck, but also some poorly placed pitches. The game calling was questionable at times, and Lopez was 1 strike away from getting out of the first inning at 1-0. He will learn.
The Nationals offense was a Jose Lobaton HR, a Trea Turner triple, and 2 Daniel Murphy doubles with very little remaining that was positive when it counted. Jayson Werth had a double, and Clint Robinson and Chris Heisey both had singles.
Trea Turner had the clutch hit of the game with men on 3rd and 2nd. Turner split the gap with a double to most hitters, but Turner sped into 3rd with a triple and scored on Murphy’s second double of the game on a ball that hit the extreme top of the wall and bounced back into play.
That is how this game went. By the way, the final score was 8-4.
Here is the Reynaldo Lopez pitching stats from Brooks Baseball:
