Hearts Sunday:
“He’s really come a long way,” Nationals general manager and team president Mike Rizzo told Spots Junkies last Wednesday about DJ Hurts’ development since being acquired from the Chicago Cubs in a trade for Jeimer Candelario at the 2023 deadline.
“Our development guys did a great job with him. He was a consistent strikeout guy at the Double-A level, but he also walked a lot, so we really drilled into all our pitchers that they needed to throw strikes, they needed to be aggressive in the strike zone and attack hitters.”
Hurts made his sixth major league start.Five 2⁄3 He struck out 10 batters in one inning against the New York Mets last week in Washington.Since making his major league debut on June 4, he has pitched 27 innings as a member of the major league starting rotation, posting a 4.67 ERA, 4.21 FIP, 7 walks (2.33 BB/9), 37 strikeouts (12.33 K/9) with a .268 ERA/.317 on-base percentage/.464 slugging percentage.
His seventh start was an 8–3 home loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, and Hurts didn’t get off to a very good start, throwing 22 of 102 pitches in four innings while giving up five hits, two walks, and five runs (four earned) and striking out four. 1⁄3 IP fouled and the short game ended in a flash.
The first run Hurts allowed came after a two-out walk to extend the Cardinals’ second inning, after which Brandon Donovan scored. James Wood, Trey Lipscomb and C.J. Abrams all got on a Nolan Gorman hit for a fly ball to left short that fell off the end for a 1-0 lead.
• What did Davey Martinez do after the game? “[Wood] “I was watching the infielder. He’s got to come running. Outfielders take priority over infielders. He’s got to come get the ball.”
Gorman scored on Dylan Carlson’s RBI single in his next at-bat to extend the lead to 2-0, and then gave the home team their third run in the fourth inning with the Nationals tying the game at 3-2 with just one runner left on base.ROE with one out and four in the fourth inning) scored, bringing the total to 5 points (4 Acquisition).
In the end, Hertz’s early exit was due to a high pitch count.
“He pitched two innings, one with 29 pitches and the other with 32,” Martinez explained after the loss. “… He gave it his all, but he threw 102 pitches in four innings and we made him pitch as long as we could. He got some leads but didn’t have the winning pitch. There were a lot of foul balls today.”
“I should have caught that fly ball,” he said of the one that landed in left field, “but he walked and got on base.” [batter with two outs]He’s left-handed and that’s what started all this trouble.”
For the young start, his lastDominant) game versus the Cardinals on Sunday?
“Just a lot of foul balls. A lot of foul balls. I know he went for a couple of fly balls and missed. I think his slider was a little better today, which is good. But like I said, he got in counts 2-2, 3-2. But getting guys out in three pitches or less is something these pitchers have to learn from. He did a really good job of that. They hit a lot of foul balls this time.”
Martinez’s team scored three runs off Cardinals starter Kyle Gibson, but those were the last in three of four innings at Nationals Park, and they were 2-for-6 with runners in scoring position and runners left on nine in the loss.
“We had 11 hits overall, but we just didn’t get the big hits today when we had guys on base,” Martinez said. “We’ll bounce back tomorrow.”
“Honestly, I like the way we’re swinging the bat. We’re hitting the ball with power. We just want to take advantage of it when we have the bases loaded, put guys in scoring position and try to score runs.”
Both teams have split the first two matches and the outcome of the series will be decided this afternoon.
“We have a chance to tie the series tomorrow, so we want to win 1-0 tomorrow,” Martinez said.
ASG CJ:
Davey Martinez spoke at length about C.J. Abrams’ strong month before the shortstop was named to the All-Star team for the first time in his career on Sunday.
Abrams, 23, improved from .205/.216/.304 in May to .374/.464/.663 in June after starting the season at .295/.373/.619.
In a press release announcing his All-Star selection, the Nationals said of Abrams:… In the first half of the 2024 season, he had the best performance among National League shortstops, leading the group with a .506 slugging percentage. He was second in extra base hits (40), OPS (.859) and RBIs.[s] (46), triple (5).
“In advanced metrics, he ranked second in Players Above Replacement (3.5) and OPS+ (146), according to Baseball-Reference.com, and second in wRC+ (138), according to FanGraphs.com.”
Abrams walked 32 times in 151 games and 614 at-bats last season, but that number has increased to 29 in 81 games and 361 at-bats this season. Martinez said that’s at least partly the result of the work the shortstop and the team’s coaching staff have put into teaching Abrams discipline at the plate.
“It’s based on those daily conversations with him, ‘Know thyself,’ right?,” Martinez said.
“Knowing which balls to hit hard, which balls to swing at, knowing what the opposing pitcher is going to do. The key for him is really embracing the walk. He can hit, and when the ball is in the strike zone, when the ball is up in the zone, he hits the ball really hard. So that’s something I talk to him about every day: ‘Swing at strikes and embrace the walks.’ And when he’s done that, he’s done really, really well.”
That’s good enough to earn him a spot on the National League roster for the 94th Fall Classic.
This includes:
Bonus quote:
Davey Martinez on 2021 first-round draft pick Brad House’s promotion to Triple-A: “The big thing for him right now is to teach him to take walks again and hit balls in the zone. He hits it really hard, he’s always been that way. And just keep doing those little things every day. Be more consistent. Once he gets to Triple-A, consistency is key. That’s going to help him in the big leagues. I would say, we’ll definitely be monitoring him. We’ll get his reports every day and see where he’s at. But he’s out there. He’s knocking on the door. So he’s one of those guys that’s going to help us in the big leagues.”
