Corbinning:
“It’s important for him to keep pitching, even when he gives up a couple of runs in an inning,” Nationals manager Davey Martinez told a reporter before last night’s game when he asked how he evaluates Patrick Corbin, the 34-year-old, 12-year veteran of the Nationals, at this point in his career. “…But things do get dicey for an inning, and then he settles in and gets some big outs for us.”
Corbin narrowly avoided the spiral in his last match. San Diego Padres in the series opener at Petco Park on Monday.
A run was scored on consecutive hits, a walk, and a walk with the bases loaded, but Corbin Arizona Diamondbacks In a game in the nation’s capital last week, he threw 90 pitches over five innings, allowing just one run in four innings.
Photo by Dennis Polloi/Getty Images
“Even just giving up one run with the bases loaded was huge,” Corbin told reporters. Quote from MASN’s Mark Zuckerman He didn’t get a decision after the 3-1 win.
“It was a game-changer and maybe cost us the win. I put myself in that situation. To be able to hold it to one was big.”
“He’s pitched well the last two games,” Martinez said before Corbin’s 16th start of his sixth season with Washington, “so we’ll go from there.”
“For him” to be successful, it’s important to keep the ball low, the manager explained. “He’s been working on a good changeup, a good cutter, a good two-seam fastball.”
“He’s really good when he throws the ball low. If he tries to throw the ball high he gets hit, so we have to keep telling him to keep throwing the ball low.”
Corbin allowed consecutive hits on pitches inside the zone in the Padres’ second inning on Monday night, and with the first two batters of the inning on base with one out and runners on first and third, he allowed a bunt single by Kim Ha-seong for the first of three runs of the inning. Kyle Higashioka hit an 0-1 sinker over the middle of home plate and into right field to add two more runs and make it 3-0.
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Photo by Dennis Polloi/Getty Images
But after that, Corbin retired 16 of the 17 batters he faced, including 13 in a row, to finish the seventh inning, 97 pitches, 59 strikeouts, and five hits, striking out five batters in that inning, including eight swinging strikeouts on the night, seven with a slider, and 18 strikeouts, 12 of which came with a sinker.
“Seven innings, regardless of what people think about him, he’s pitched really well his last three starts,” Martinez said. Quote from MASN’s Bobby Blanco“He gave it his all, he pitched really well, so I’m really proud of him,” he said after the extra-inning loss.
Menstruation with RISP:
In the third inning, Joey Meneses hit a double to score one run, in the fifth inning, Meneses hit a single to score one run, and in the seventh inning… [checks notes] … Meneses’ work helped the Nationals tie the game at 3-3 and it remained tied until the ninth inning.
Meneses entered last night off to a hot (and sustained) start, getting a hit in 10 of 12 games, during which he recorded three doubles, one home run, seven RBIs, three walks and six runs scored.
As the Nationals highlighted in their pregame notes, in his 27 games so far he has a .269 batting average, .307 on-base percentage, .398 slugging percentage, six doubles, two home runs, 16 RBIs, five walks and 11 runs scored, and since the end of April (April 25 to be exact), he has 15 hits in scoring position for 44 at-bats (.341).
As mentioned above, Meneses had three hits in three at-bats against the Padres. He started this season with three home runs in 270 at-bats in 66 games, a batting average of .239/on-base percentage of .296/slugging percentage of .317, but considering that he has recorded 13 home runs in 240 at-bats in 56 games since his MLB debut in 2022, this is a somewhat disappointing result in terms of power (He also has strong overall offensive power, having recorded a batting average of .324, an on-base percentage of .367, and a slugging percentage of .563 in 2022 despite being a 30-year-old rookie, and last season he recorded a batting average of .275, an on-base percentage of .321, and a slugging percentage of .401 in 154 games and 657 at-bats, while hitting 13 home runs.).
But his manager, Davey Martinez, said after Meneses’ game-winning run Sunday night against the Rockies in Colorado that he was pleased with what he’d seen from him at the plate recently.
“That’s his personality. I’m not too worried about his power. I want him to understand he’s a scorer,” Martinez said.
“We’re counting on him to score, and that meant a lot to us. He stayed in center field, got a hit, hit it hard and provided the game-winning run.”
Meneses went 3-for-5 with 2 strikeouts and 3 RBIs in the season opener at San Diego.
Benefits:
With the score tied at 3-3 after the ninth inning, the Nationals scored on a double by catcher Keibert Lewis and then, with one out, on a two-run homer to left field by Nick Senzel to make it 6-3.
Hunter Harvey took the mound in the bottom of the 10th after Kyle Finnegan pitched for the second straight game at Coors Field on Saturday and Sunday, but Harvey struggled, allowing a leadoff hitter Donovan Solano to hit a double and a two-run single by Jackson Merrill, who also had a free runner on base, making the score 6-5. A walk to Kim Ha-seong and a sacrifice bunt by Tyler Wade advanced two runners to scoring position, and with one out, an intentional walk to Luis Arraez with the bases loaded gave Jackson Profar a chance to take the lead, who singled for the win and made it 7-6 Padres.
“I’m proud of the way our guys came back. This is a tough game,” manager Davey Martinez said after the series-opening loss.
“It’s a tough game and they’re not going to let their guard down so we’ve got to come back and do it again tomorrow.”
“It’s tough to accept for sure,” he added, “but like I said, hopefully we can come back tomorrow and try and score some more goals.”
