Washington Nationals news & notes: Nats lose in extras; Juan Yepez up to play 1st + more…

Corbin vs. the Cardinals:

Patrick Corbin threw a belt-high first-pitch sinker 415 feet from home plate at Tropicana Field to Isaac Paredes for a single with one out, then Jose Caballero smashed a 1-0 sinker 371 feet up center field for a two-run homer into left field to give Washington a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning but lost 5-0 in the series finale last week in Tampa Bay.

“He missed a couple spots,” manager Davey Martinez said of Corbin’s 17th start of the season. “All of a sudden, he got caught in that inning, the three-run inning, but other than that, he pitched well.”

“Everything was really good,” Corbin said after his season slumped to 1-8 as the losing pitcher with a 5.49 ERA, 4.81 FIP, 33 walks (3.13 per nine innings), 65 strikeouts (6.16 per nine innings) and a terrible .301 ERA/.357 on-base percentage/.513 slugging percentage in 95 innings.

“Today I was able to throw my fastball inside, my cutter was good and I was able to throw a lot of sliders, and I was able to outmaneuver my opponents,” Corbin said, reflecting on his own pitching. “Other than a few fastballs, my pitches were a little high and I had a few strikeouts early on. So, for a team like this that wants to hit the ball out of the park, we may need to be a little more careful with our early pitches.”

“I thought I played pretty well today,” he added.

“Sometimes that doesn’t show up on the scorecard.”

Corbin got off to a strong start, pitching three scoreless innings against the St. Louis Cardinals in the nation’s capital on Friday night. He threw 27 pitches in the first inning.He then got through the second and third innings with 21 pitches, but then allowed consecutive singles with one out, a sacrifice fly, and a one-run single in the fourth inning, throwing 28 pitches, for a total of just 76 pitches.

He added another run with a leadoff double and an RBI single in the fifth inning, and the left-hander finished the day having thrown a total of 91 pitches with the Nationals leading, 5-3.

Corbin struck out just five times on the night, but he threw 16 strikes in total — seven on his slider and seven on his sinker and two on his fastball.

The Tigers maintained the lead until the seventh inning with a double by Jesse Winker in the first inning, a single by Luis Garcia Jr. in the same inning, a two-run double by CJ Abrams in the second inning, and Garcia Jr.’s 10th home run in the bottom of the fourth inning. However, in the eighth inning, Nolan Gorman hit a single to score one run, and in the ninth inning, Willson Contreras hit home runs off Hunter Harvey and Kyle Finnegan, respectively, to tie the game at 5-5.

Both teams scored a run in the extra innings of the 10th, but the Cardinals’ leadoff runner scored on a strike-3/passed ball to give the visitors a 6-5 victory in the 11th.

“We shouldn’t have been in that situation today,” Martinez said of losing the lead, going into extra innings and ultimately losing the series opener. “We were leading like that, we stopped hitting for four innings, we tried to come back, but we made some mistakes today and it wasn’t a pretty game. But we kept fighting. We kept fighting. We kept fighting. We came close, but it was tough to put ourselves in a situation where we had to go into extra innings.”

“We made some mistakes,” Martinez said in the post-game press conference, “but our guys are coming in and we know that. Patrick pitched five great innings, had a couple of unlucky hits and a grounder. And like I said, we’ve got to come back tomorrow. I’m happy we got the runs early, but we can’t let our guard down. We can’t let our guard down.”

“You know what happens if you don’t score in the middle innings. You’ve got to beat the other team, you’ve got to beat their starting pitcher.”

Yepes for menstrual pain:

Joey Meneses hit 16 for 81 (.198/.253/.296) with five doubles, one home run, six walks and 18 strikeouts in 24 games and 91 at-bats in June, improving his batting average from .239/.301/.303 this year to .230/.291/.306. He was just four for 16 in four games in July, but the Nationals decided to make a change after their July 4th win against the New York Mets in Washington, DC.

Meneses was demoted to Triple-A Rochester after the Nationals’ final game of their series against their NL East rivals, and before the start of this weekend’s four-game series against St. Louis, the team promoted former Cardinal Juan Yepes to first base in Washington. Yepes, 26, batted .263 with “…15 doubles, 11 home runs and 41 RBIs.”[s]This season, he played in 74 games for the Red Wings, recording 40 walks, 3 stolen bases and 38 runs.

Yepes batted .371 with 23 hits in 62 at-bats, a .435 on-base percentage (seven walks) and a .565 batting average. [SLG]The team announced he would play shortstop at first base in Meneses’ absence, saying: “In his last 16 games with Rochester, he has three hits (three doubles, three home runs).”

“He had a hit in 15 of 16 games, including six multi-hit games,” the press release stated.

“Yepez is hitting really well and playing well at first base,” manager Davey Martinez said in his pregame press conference Friday. “We want him to come in here and see what he can do. He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do and he’s done really well, so we’re going to give him an opportunity to come in here and help us win games.”

Yepes, a former Atlanta Braves prospect, was traded to the Atlanta Braves this winter.Signed by Venezuela in 2014) was acquired by the Cardinals in 2017 for (former Nationals player) Matt Adams, but was not offered by the Cardinals.

He got off to a relatively slow start in the Nationals’ Triple-A division but earned his opportunity after posting a .307/.378/.455 slugging percentage in June.

“I think I was trying to prove too much with a new organization,” Yepes said of his first few months with the organization.

“And I just stayed focused on my game and everything fell into place and I was able to get through the month.”

“Yepez is doing really well and hitting really well so we’re going to give him an opportunity to play first base,” Martinez said.

As for Meneses? “It was all about Joey. We were trying to get Joey,” Martinez told reporters about the move.

“He’ll be out, but he has options. He’ll come out, work on his swing and try to come back. We haven’t seen the end of Joey.”

Development Starter:

General manager and president of baseball operations Mike Rizzo called DJ Hurts’ emergence in the Nationals’ system after being traded from the Chicago Cubs in 2023 a success story for both the left-handed starting pitcher and his new team.

Acquired at the ’23 trade deadline, Hurts started last season with Double-A Harrisburg before moving to the Arizona Fall League and starting this year with Triple-A Rochester, making his major league debut on June 4.

Photo: Scott Tetch/Getty Images

Rizzo was speaking the morning after Hertz struck out 10 of 22 batters in the fifth inning. ²⁄₃He pitched well against the New York Mets in the nation’s capital, pitching 10 innings, 92 pitches and no walks.

“If I can strike out 10 batters, walk zero and allow just one run against that lineup, that’s a really good job,” Rizzo told Junkies.

“He’s really grown a lot,” the GM said of Hurts’ improvement since the trade.

“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.”

Rizzo said that message is now being conveyed to pitchers throughout the system.

“The young pitchers [Jake] Irving, and [MacKenzie] Gore, and [Mitchell] “Parker, Hurts, all of those young pitchers that have come through our system, they’ve taught me that you have to attack the strike zone,” he explained.

Photo by Jess Rapfogel/Getty Images

“To pitch for the Nationals, to be successful in the major leagues, you can’t give yourself a free pass. You have to be aggressive in the strike zone and have the ability to get hitters in the strike zone and on home plate,” Rizzo added, “because hitters rarely drive the ball out of the zone, and that’s what the major leagues are about.”

“You have to step up to the plate and do your best to get guys out, and these guys did a great job of that.”