The Nationals take over sole possession of third place with this win today
The Washington Nationals won a thrilling walk-off on Friday via a James Wood single as CJ Abrams scored the winning run, and it was déjà vu (sort of) as Abrams scored today’s winning run via a walk-off again on the first place New York Mets. Abrams speed and smart base running made both walk-offs possible.
Today’s walk-off was much more improbable than Friday’s walk-off as the Nats were behind 7-1 until the bottom of the 7th inning, and were staring down a 1.0 percent chance of winning. Then Riley Adams crushed a 3-run homer and the Nats were down by only 1-run in the bottom of the 7th inning. Like Friday, the Nats were behind by 1-run entering the 9th inning. With two walk-offs this weekend, the team is showing the league that they are not the rollover team that they were in the second half of last year.
Starting with the 9th inning on Friday, the Nationals’ problematic bullpen has now pieced together 10-innings of scoreless relief against the Mets. Even with starter Mitchell Parker struggling in his start today, he gave up seven runs (six earned), but the bullpen held their own in 4.0 shutout innings to allow the offense to get back into this game.
“I think it’s just a collective group that understands what it needs to do to finish games. We talked about that last year. Some of those one-run games, two-run games, there’s going to come a point in time where we learn how to win those games. I think you’re starting to see that now.”
— said manager Dave Martinez
The Nats young core of Abrams, Dylan Crews, and Wood came through again in this game. Crews put up the first run of the game with a solo home run. Abrams singled in the game tying run in the 9th inning and was pushed to second base when Wood drew a 3-2 walk. With Luis Garcia Jr. hitting a hard grounder (ruled an error) to first baseman Pete Alonso, Abrams actually scored on a bad throw to the pitcher covering first base.
While the skies were blue today with the sun shining, the elements wreaked havoc as outfielder Juan Soto lost a ball in the sun, and the wind was blowing balls around. In fact, the wind was briskly blowing in, and still Crews and Adams both hit homers for the Nats today.
“We’ve always been able to fight. We’ve always been able to scratch and claw like that. We have great guys in the clubhouse, and everyone’s pulling for each other in these moments. It’s cool to see it pay off.”
— catcher Riley Adams said
These types of wins can go a long way for a young team in believing in themselves. Putting two together in a weekend is rare. With this win, the Nationals are in sole possession of third place in the NL East and at this very moment are 1.5 games behind the second place Phillies. If the Phillies lose tonight, the Nats will wake up tomorrow only 1.0 game outside of second place.
Remember, this is a 4-game wrap-around series with the Mets that finishes on Monday. We will see if the crowds show up like they did all weekend. Like Friday night’s crowd, today’s attendance was just under 31,000. With tomorrow’s gate, the series will go well over 100,000 that flocked to Nats Park, even with the competition with the Capitals hockey team playing playoff hockey in town this past week, and the NFL Draft as additional competition.
The Nats are up 2-1 in this series, and were shutout yesterday by just a score of 2-0. The umpiring certainly was off again today for both teams. So much so that assistant hitting coach Chris Johnson was ejected early by the homeplate umpire. Certainly the mood was tense behind 6-0 in the second inning. The Nats seemed to start getting some calls after Johnson’s ejection.
“Sometimes, there are days where you get whacked — and sometimes days where you do the whacking. It looked like it was going to be one of those [getting whacked] days early. … Little by little, we were able to get it back.”
— outfielder Alex Call said after his 2-3 game including a key lead-off double in the 9th inning
After the Nats walked-off on the Mets this afternoon, it was the Mets’ fans who were the ones complaining about the umpires, their bullpen, Soto’s inability to catch a ball he lost in the sun, Alonso’s error, and their managerial decisions. It’s funny how that happens.
With the Nationals record of 13-15, the Nats would need to win tomorrow against the Mets, and beat the Phillies on Tuesday and Wednesday to finish the month of April with a winning record. The team has never done that in Martinez’s 8-year managerial record. Credit to Martinez, for late game decisions that all paid off from pinch-running with Jacob Young, to inserting Keibert Ruiz as a pinch-hitter to making pitching moves.
After a big win like this, can the Nats show up tomorrow with more energy and win a game after a finish like today? That is what we want to see on Monday. This team has been winning series, but they haven’t won three games in a series this season …. yet.
