Walk-off wins:
With the Nationals trailing 2-1 in the eighth inning on Friday night in Washington’s nation’s capital, Alex Cole singled with one out, advanced to third on a single by Luis Garcia Jr. and tied the game at 2-2 on a sacrifice fly by Juan Yepes. Cole came to bat again in the bottom of the 10th and the 29-year-old outfielder turned in six blistering pitches from Los Angeles Angels relief pitcher Ben Joyce before smashing a 99.1 mph fastball low and wide off the right side of the infield for a walk-off hit that put Washington up 3-2.
This was Cole’s second career walk-off hit, and as the Nationals stated in their post-game notes from last night’s game, his final walk-off hit will be on May 4, 2023 against Chicago (National League). This was the team’s second walk-off win of the season and their 30th come-from-behind victory of the 2024 season.
“The guys wanted to win. They wanted to win tonight. You could see that,” coach Davey Martinez said in his post-game press conference. “The guys didn’t want to go into overtime again and not win.”
“They wanted to celebrate, and that was a good thing for them.”
Martinez said Cole put together a good at-bat against a tough pitcher and got the big hit the team badly needed.
“The first swing, he took a really big swing, but the next swing, he just wanted to hit the ball,” the captain explained. “He was throwing 100 miles per hour, so sometimes you have to make contact with the ball and force the pitcher. He got on the ball really well, didn’t force it, and hit a liner. I think the ball hit him, so it was a great at-bat.”
Cole wasn’t sure it would be an immediate hit.
“It looked like he was trying to go straight in. [Angels’ second baseman Luis Guillorme’s] “I got gloved, so it was a little disappointing,” Cole told reporters. Quote from MASN’s Mark Zuckerman.
“Because I hit it hard. Then it all happened so fast. I saw the ball floating and I was like, ‘Oh my goodness. He didn’t catch it. Time to have some fun!'”
“It’s awesome. Anytime you get a win it’s awesome,” Mitchell Parker said after the starting pitcher gave up six runs against the Nationals. 1⁄3 He pitched one inning, allowing only eight hits and two runs (both earned), and was a solid left-handed pitcher, striking out five batters.
“Mitchell Parker kept us in the game and did a really good job,” Martinez said of the left-hander’s performance.
“He was good, he was good. He was attacking the strike zone. He was making his guys hit the ball.”
“He pitched really well. … We needed that. He was another guy that was determined to pitch in the seventh inning, which was good.”
Jacob Burns scored one for the Nationals. 2⁄3 The game was scoreless after Parker finished, then closer Kyle Finnegan pitched two innings in the ninth and 10th before Cole scored the walk-off winner.
“[Finnegan] actually came to me [after the top of the ninth] “He said he wanted to get out again,” Martinez said after the game, “… I just looked at him and I said, ‘Yeah, I don’t want to get you out because I want to win here. But if I have to, yeah, if you’re good, I’ll get you out again,’ and he went out there and got a big out for us.”
After two scoreless innings by Finnegan, Cole delivered a big hit to make it 3-2.
“As I always say, sometimes one more player than the others is enough,” Martinez reiterated.
“Cole had a good at-bat. We got a little better on the little things today. We moved runners around, we got a sacrifice fly and it was a good win.”
Note:
• Via Nationals: “Alex Cole finished the game. “…He has three hits in five at-bats, one RBI and one run scored, and has had a hit in nine of his last 10 starts…In his last 11 major league games, he is 17 hits in 31 at-bats (.548), with four doubles, one home run, eight RBIs, six walks, three stolen bases and five runs scored.”
• Abrams absent: C.J. Abrams was ruled out before the Opening Day game against the Angels, and in the postgame press conference, manager Davey Martinez explained that the shortstop had back spasms. “We’ll see how he feels tomorrow.”
Rendon returns: Anthony Rendon returns to Nationals Park for the first time in five years and leads the 2019 Nationals League World Series He was named to the championship roster, received a tribute video and was warmly welcomed back to his former team.
“As we all know, we shared some special moments together,” Davey Martinez said before the series opener at Washington. “He’s big for this organization. Coming here when I was on the other side and watching him play, I said, ‘This guy’s an incredible player. He can hit. The first time I saw him he was playing second base, then he moved to third base. I said, this guy can play. To manage him and get to know what kind of player he is, as we all know, he’s very laid back, but he plays hard every day and I knew what I was getting out of him every day. He didn’t say a lot, he just went out there and played the game. And I love that about him. He was very special. I’ll say this, he was a big part of what we did in ’19. He got hurt and we lost him for a while, but when he came back, he just kept on playing.”
