Washington Nationals news & notes: Nats avoid sweep with 5-2 win over Guardians; Jake Irvin solid again…

Irving of Cleveland:

They took a 4-0 lead in the top of the second inning of the final game of the series. Cleveland Guardians On Sunday afternoon, pitcher Jake Irvin dominated the zone over six innings, 98 pitches and 68 strikes, allowing five hits, one walk and two earned runs.

Irvin struck out six of the 23 batters he faced, threw 11 strikes, six of which were curveballs (41% up from his season average of 32.1%), and threw 20 strikes, nine of which were curveballs.

“I feel like I’m mixing up my fastball and my curveball to confuse guys, and if I can get strikes, it’s a good weapon for me,” Irvin said of his increased use of the curveball in recent outings.

“So being able to do that and get ahead in the count and then even be able to finish people off with it is something I have a lot of confidence in.”

“He’s pitching well. He’s leading off at times. He’s pitching in big situations. He’s pitching well,” manager Davey Martinez told reporters after the team’s 5-2 win over the Guardians.

“The cutter. He got two outs with the cutter again today, which was good. But his ability to attack the zone was the key, it really was.”

“He’s not afraid to throw the ball over home plate, which is great. And he’s getting quick outs at times and pitching when he needs to, but he’s pitched really well.”

Irvin said the four-run lead early on allowed him to stay calm and attack the hitters.

“It’s awesome,” the 27-year-old starter said of the scoring support. “It makes my job a lot easier. I just have to go out there and keep attacking the zone and stay in the game. Kudos to those guys. They took a little weight off my shoulders. It was really awesome to see.”

“We’re committed to trying to score first and keeping our pitchers calm,” Martinez told reporters. “They’re going to keep us in the game. We’ve been doing that all year.”

“It’s really important to understand that you have to beat up your starting pitchers and get your pitchers settled.”

Joey Meneses doubled to give the Nationals two runs in the top of the second inning, then scored on an RBI single by Ildemaro Vargas, who scored on an RBI liner to right field by Lane Thomas with two outs to make it 4-0.

“Our offense was good today. Our guys swung the bat, stayed in the middle of the field and did the little things,” Martinez said.

“Vargas had a good day. Everyone did. Joey got some big hits for us. It was a good win.”

“This team is tough. We came here and managed to get a win, started off 3-1 on the road against Atlanta and finished 4-3, which is awesome.

“We’re coming home and another team is coming so we’ve got to be ready for that, but it was a good win for us.”

CJ Abrams – 2024 Edition:

C.J. Abrams, 23, finished the first month-plus of the 2024 season with a .295 batting average, .373 on-base percentage, .619 slugging percentage, five doubles, four triples, seven home runs, 11 walks and 20 strikeouts in 119 at-bats.

What about in May? Abrams batted .205/.216/.304 with five doubles, two home runs, one walk and 29 strikeouts in 116 at-bats.

Manager Davey Martinez told reporters Saturday that he plans to talk to his shortstop and tell him to forget about the second month of the season and work to get back to the form that led to his success in March and April.

“I’m going to talk to him a little bit today and say, ‘Hey, this month is over. A new month is starting. Let’s get off to a good start,'” Martinez said.

Photo: Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

“The biggest thing I want him to do is understand that he’s in a little bit of a slump and that he’ll get out of it at some point. Just focus on throwing strikes, swinging for strikes and if he walks, let him walk. I always tell him, ‘If you get on first base, there’s a good chance you’re going to get a second.’ So get ready to walk and swing for strikes.”

The eighth-year captain said there’s no one thing he can point to as the cause of Abrams’ struggles, but rather a confluence of factors, including the pitching he was seeing.

“First of all, they’re definitely throwing him curveballs,” Martinez said, “and in your mind, you start to wait for it. And secondly, he’s really behind on his preparations. He really is. We’re looking at him as a starting point.” [to] It’s about being on time and controlling the ball. They’re throwing him a lot of fastballs, but it makes no difference. I’ve looked at all the numbers. It makes no difference how many fastballs they throw to him. It’s just a matter of when to throw them.

“So he’s got to be ready to throw the fastball and get some walks. His walk rate is way down, so he’s got to get some walks.”

Abrams’ BB% increased from 9.2% in March/April to 0.9% in May, and his on-base percentage increased from .373 to .216.

Martinez has often spoken about how the Nationals’ starting pitchers make the team tick, and on Saturday he was asked if Abrams was feeling pressure because things aren’t going as well as they did earlier in the season.

Photo: Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

“No, he tries to go out there and play every day,” he said. “He’s really good at that. He just tries to help us win games. We’ve struggled lately, but when he does something, it helps us win. He’s come a long way. He’s very mature, he’s grown up a lot. Like I said, ‘hitting is hard.’ We talk about it all the time. The one thing that hitters always seem to have ups and downs, there are downs. Pitchers get that sometimes, but hitters are more likely to. So he’s got to understand what he was really good at, which was hitting the fastball, staying on the fastball, and getting ready early. And then he’ll start hitting.”

According to Baseball Savant, Abrams hit .373 off his fastball in the first little over a month, and in May he hit .262 off his fastball.

With breaking balls, his batting average improved from .257 to .146.

So where is the line between trusting Abrams’ obvious talent and starting to tinker with some things to turn things around for him?

“He’s extremely talented,” Martinez said, of course, “and he’s a big part of our lineup.”

“What I start to notice is when he starts going all out defensively. That’s when you need to hold him back a little bit. Maybe give him a day or two of rest.”

“And maybe sometimes he’s playing every day and I have to. He doesn’t want to sit out and I have to say, ‘Hey, I’ll give you a day.’

“But that’s what we’re looking for. He’s done really well so far, he really has.”

“Whenever he gets on base, something happens. So he’s fun to watch every day. He really is.”

“So we’ll get him out of there and start doing what he can.”

Photo: Todd Kirkland/Getty Images

Unfortunately, in Friday’s series opener at Cleveland, Abrams was (in Martinez’s own words) hit in the face on the field by a ball that was deflected toward short by third baseman Nick Senzel, leaving the shortstop stunned for a moment before recovering and making the play.

“He hit his face in the ground,” Martinez said Friday night. “He said he had a black look on his face before he went to get the ball, but he hit his face in the ground pretty hard.”

Abrams also appeared to hurt his shoulder on the play, and after getting it checked out before Saturday’s game, he felt something was wrong.

“He’s taken some swings,” Martinez said after the 3-2 loss. “He had a fall yesterday and he said he had shoulder pain, so we wanted to be cautious and make a substitution. His left shoulder was a little sore from taking some swings, so we’ll just make a substitution and see how it feels tomorrow.”

Abrams was originally scheduled to be in the lineup for the final game at Cleveland, but was again removed before the game began.

“Hopefully CJ will be back tomorrow. He said he felt good today but we didn’t want to push him so we left him out,” Martinez said.