Washington Nationals news & notes: Nats snap scoreless inning streak; beat Twins, 3-2 in opener in Target Field…

Front Page – Trevor vs Twins:

Trevor Williams kept the Cleveland Guardians scoreless in the fifth inning in last week’s start, but returned to the mound in the top of the sixth, giving up a leadoff double and single before being substituted on the mound.

One of the two runners he left scored on the only run first allowed by the 30-year-old right-hander. After losing 4-3.

“I want things to end when I go out there,” Williams told reporters. In the words of MASN’s Bobby Blanco After starting season number 3 of Nuts’ Rights. “Now he’s two pitches to his No. 6 and not his third out at No. 6. So it just carries over to the next start.”

Last night at Target Field in cold Minneapolis, Minnesota, Williams got off to another good start, keeping two scoreless innings on 23 pitches and just one hit before throwing two pitches in the bottom of the third to make it 1-0. was. Game in favor of the Twins after Joey Gallo hit an 88 MPH 0-1 fastball over the middle of the 386-foot plate to right field on his fifth home run of 2023.

Ryan Jeffers hit a double in his next at-bat (Victor Robles and Lane Thomas come together to drop a catchable ball), took third base on a sack bunt by Michael A. Taylor, scored on a sack fly by Max Kepler, and after three home halves, a fly to short center made the game 2–0. A pitch frame that left Williams with a total of 48 on the night.

Williams retired five times in a row right after the sack-fly RBI, walked one out seven of eight times, and struck out in three scoreless fifths, leaving 79 pitches overall.

He now has a 2 out double (Sweated Trevor Larnach’s long fly to center and fell into Victor Robles’ glove on track 3, 395 feet from home).

Trevor Williams quote: 6.0 IP, 4H, 2R, 2ER, 1BB, 4Ks, 1HR, 93P, 60S, 7/6GO/FO.

“He gave us six strong innings and kept us in the ball game.

Back Page – No Malice:

Davey Martinez said it “occasionally happens” when a back-to-back Ls-to-O offense dried up earlier this week to give the Nationals an 18-inning scoreless streak.

“We’ve talked about this before,” he told reporters. It really is. No rhyme or reason. Other than that, I like the way we pitch, the way we defend, even though we know we have to hit to score.

“We have to stay there. Hits come. Hits come.”

Washington’s .250 AVG total was 14th among the 30 MLB teams in last night’s series opener in Minnesota, while the Nationals’ .315 OBP was 20th and .335 SLG was 29th. are in scoring position, the club’s .227 AVG is 23rd, .292 OBP is 25th and .273 SLG is 29th. So Martinez decided to change things up a bit.

Dominic Smith, who had been penciled in as No. 2 in the last five games, was demoted to No. 6 during a tough stretch (27, 3 batting average, .111/.226/.111, 3 walks, 6 kicks, no slugging in his last 7 games.) Keibert Lewis (9-for-24, batting .375/.375/.417 in last 6 games) moved from a sixth-place hit in the last five games to second.

When asked about his move ahead of the first of three games against the Twins, Martinez explained, “We’re just trying to make things happen.”

“We really have to move Dom. He’s a big part of our offense. I just dropped him a little bit. Keibert is swinging the bat well. I talked to him today about keeping the bat on the ball without changing anything and he did well so today I’m going to give him a second chance to hit and see how it goes. increase.”

Lewis batted 27 for 7 in the first 10 games of the season (.189/.302/.324) and had two doubles, one homer, five walks and a 6K in his last 43 at-bats.

In his last six games, the catcher hasn’t struck out at all.

“He’s lost a lot of lower body speed,” Martinez said of working for Lewis at bat now. “He uses his hands better. Try to get him laid off — put the ball in the zone instead of chasing the curveball so he can hit the ball hard and he did it the last few days have been really good for him It was good.”

Lewis has also played in nine straight games with the Nationals, and since last taking a break from the series against the Rockies at Coors Field, his manager says they have been in daily contact to make decisions. I was. -H is.

“This is based on a conversation I had with him, playing against him every day in day games,” the manager said. “He says he’s doing well and he’s feeling good right now. So we’re running him there. Let’s see how today’s game goes. Tomorrow we have a one o’clock game.” i know [2:10 PM ET]which could possibly mean getting Riley [Adams] Prepare for tomorrow’s match

The Nationals’ clean sheet ended with 24 innings, with Tyler Murre pitching six. ¹⁄₃ Joey Meneses went scoreless before hitting a homer in the top of the seventh, making the game 2-1 in favor of the Twins…

CJ Abrams doubled on Twins reliever Griffin Jacks to record two outs in the first half of the eighth for the Knots, then singled from the left side of Lane Thomas to tie the score at 2-2. In second, he made a go-ahead run in scoring position, lining up a 1-1 fastball to left-center shortstop and scored his third consecutive two-out hit, making the Nationals 3-2.

Hunter Harvey hit the side 1-2-3 in the bottom of the eighth after the visitors took the lead.

Kyle Finnegan lost a 10-pitch battle to Byron Buxton, who faced a 3-4-5 hitter for the Twins and singled to start the frame. On a walk to Trevor Larnach, Finnegan earned a visit to the mound from pitching coach Jim Hickey.

The closer dialed up a 5-4-3 double play in the end of the inning off Jose Miranda’s bat.

ball game.

“As you can see, they’ve gotten better at bat,” Martinez said after the comeback win. “[Meneses] I picked everyone up, got on the board, and you know, I thought Trevor was the key.

“The bullpen came in and stopped them. was a big hit.”

Of Abrams and Thomas’ hits, he added, “They were trying to stay on the ball, just trying to get the ball in play.”

“Both were big hits. But even CJ Abrams was a big hit there and doubled it, which is great. Look, we played well. I’m proud of everyone.” We didn’t give up.

“They went out there and we played good defense again. This is great. It’s a big win for us.”

Balanced Shed Yule:

Not the old AL Senator. The Nationals will face a series of American League teams. They played against the Braves and had his four games with the Rockies early on, but the first few weeks of the new campaign saw the Rays, Angels, Guardians and now the Twins all but those two. AL team.

What does Davey Martinez think about the balanced schedule so far?

Photo by Adam Becher/Getty Images

Martinez said Friday night before the series opener at Target Field. “I don’t seem to care at all. I think they like it. I haven’t been here since 2019, so I can come here. I can see new things. Faces , old face with Rocco [Baldelli], I had him as a player. We go a long way back, but until we get back to the National League, we get to see and play with a few different teams, but so far so good.

“I would like to win more games against them, but that is yet to come.”

“We’ve been banging heads with some really good teams,” he added. But our pitching went well. We played a lot of double plays. Our defense worked. After that, he scored one more than the others and today he is 1-0 and we have to move on from there. ”