Sometimes your ace has an off night. Sometimes you strand runners in pivotal situations. Sometimes you trail by three runs in the ninth inning. In those circ*mstances, you don’t escape. Or you aren’t supposed to, at least.
On Monday night, the Washington Nationals almost did in an 8-7 loss to the New York Mets. The dugout stirred as the Nationals put two runners on with no outs in the ninth. The Nationals Park crowd chanted Jesse Winker’s name, and he delivered a one-out single to cut the deficit to 8-6 before Ildemaro Vargas loaded the bases with a single of his own.
A game that stretched beyond three hours waited patiently as the Mets replaced reliever Adam Ottavino with Jake Diekman and the Nationals had Joey Meneses pinch-hit for Joey Gallo. And then it waited for Drew Millas, who was called up from Class AAA the day before, after Meneses made it a one-run game with a sacrifice fly that pushed the tying run to third base.
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But Millas struck out looking, ending Washington’s chance to avoid a loss that had seemed inevitable.
“Trying to get a pitch that I could do something with, and unfortunately it didn’t work out tonight,” Millas said. “No excuses — got to get it done next time.”
Before all of that, the MacKenzie Gore that the Nationals got Monday night wasn’t the one they have grown accustomed to. Gore entered as one of just 10 major leaguers with at least 10 starts, an ERA below 3.00 and a lights-out strikeout rate above 25 percent. He exited in the fifth inning with his lips pursed and the bases loaded, tepidly clutching a streak — 11 starts to begin the season without allowing more than three earned runs — that marked his next step toward ace status.
Before Monday, the three biggest strides he had made were the three areas that pitching coach Jim Hickey said in spring training would help make him the top-10 pitcher he could be: He had minimized the wreckage of bad innings, he had limited blowup outings, and he had cut back on noncompetitive pitches.
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On Monday, for the first time, he struggled in all three facets. Within minutes of his exit, his streak was over: Dylan Floro allowed all three inherited runners to score and had one more run charged to his own tally, leaving Gore with a line of 4⅓ innings, seven hits and six earned runs. His ERA rose to 3.57. Washington’s 4-3 lead became a 7-4 deficit from which it could not claw all the way back.
“I just didn’t execute. It just was not good,” Gore said. “... I wasn’t able to make pitches when I needed to get out of that traffic. So it’s frustrating.”
As Washington (27-32) faced New York (25-35) for the first time, command issues got the left-hander in trouble. A season-high 18.5 percent of his pitches were in noncompetitive locations, per the website TruMedia, and he finished with a season-low two strikeouts. The Mets tagged him for a run on Harrison Bader’s sacrifice fly in the second and added two more in the fourth on a leadoff homer by Mark Vientos and Francisco Lindor’s RBI single. A pair of fifth-inning walks ended Gore’s night before Floro struggled, and New York pushed across an eighth run in the sixth.
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The Nationals did capitalize on a few early opportunities — progress for a team that fell to 4-10 in one-run games.
In the second, Nick Senzel hit a ball to the warning track in center field that popped out of Bader’s glove for a two-base error. Winker singled him home to tie it at 1.
In the fourth, trailing by two, the Nationals challenged what would have been an inning-ending double play when Vargas slid into first base to try to beat Lindor’s throw. The call was overturned, which not only sent Senzel home from third but extended the inning for Gallo to hit the ball he was signed to hit (a 96-mph fastball down the middle) where he was signed to hit it (398 feet into the right field stands). A 3-1 deficit was suddenly a 4-3 lead.
“A lot of fight with our team in our clubhouse,” Winker said. “We always feel like we’re in it. We almost got the job done.”
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Another close call benefited Washington in the fifth: First base umpire Ryan Wills said Senzel didn’t go around on a check swing, setting up Winker’s bases-loaded walk that cut the Nationals’ deficit to 7-5.
After that, the Mets’ beleaguered pitching staff cleaned up its mistakes for a while, stranding three in the fifth, two in the sixth and two in the eighth before finally closing the door in the ninth.
“One little thing, one block, one ball falls, for us it’s a different game,” Manager Dave Martinez said. “Today just wasn’t our day.”
Notes: Shortstop CJ Abrams (left shoulder) and outfielder Jacob Young (right hand soreness) were out of the lineup and remain day-to-day. Young tried to hit before the game but was still sore after exiting Saturday’s loss at Cleveland. Abrams, who last played Friday, also felt better, but Martinez said his shoulder still bothers him when he swings. …
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Right-hander Josiah Gray will throw around 50 pitches in a live bullpen session Tuesday. If all goes well, Martinez said, the Nationals would like him to begin a rehab assignment. The Opening Day starter has not pitched since April 4 after straining the right flexor muscle near his forearm. …
Right-hander Cade Cavalli was at Nationals Park, where he will remain for a few days so Martinez and Hickey can “put eyes on him,” the manager said. In his rehab from Tommy John surgery in March 2023, Washington’s top pitching prospect last pitched Thursday, conceding two earned runs with five strikeouts and three walks in 2⅔ innings with high Class A Wilmington.
