Washington Nationals news & notes: Nats lose first game of 2024 to Marlins; MacKenzie Gore solid again…

More Similar floor Gore Aida:

After a long string of poor starts, 25-year-old left-hander MacKenzie Gore pitched well for the second straight game, allowing two runs in six innings and throwing 102 pitches while walking just one and striking out six of 26 batters in a 5-2 win over the New York Knicks in New York last week. Yankees.

“He threw strikes and pitched really well,” manager Davey Martinez said after Gore’s 27th start of the season.

“The changeup was really effective. The slider was good, too. But his fastball has always been awesome. That’s his pitch.”

Gore struck out 14 times and 18 times against the Yankees, eight of which came with his four-seam fastball, which accounted for 53% of his pitches and was slightly faster than his average velocity this year.

“I felt explosive off the mound. I felt good,” Gore said of his outing. “My fastball velocity was back up where I needed it to be. I felt good.”

Continuing his hot streak, Gore took the mound last night in Miami and retired the Marlins’ first 16 batters he faced, striking out seven, but then the lefty walked with one out in the sixth inning and allowed an RBI double in his next at-bat to give the home team a 1-0 lead in the second of three games played this week at LawnDepot Park. Over the six games, Gore struck out a total of 20 batters in a row (one on a swinging strikeout and the other on a swinging strikeout) for a total of nine strikeouts in 93 pitches.

Gore finished with 17 strikeouts (seven of which were fastballs, a 52% pitch rate) and 16 strikeouts (11 of which were fastballs).

Miami added one more run in the seventh off Jacob Burns, but a bases-loaded walk by Jose Tena, an RBI grounder by Andres Chaparro and an RBI double by James Wood gave the Nationals a 3-2 lead going into the seventh. The Marlins then tied the game in the eighth and won 4-3 in extra innings to take their record against Miami this year, 8-1.

“To me, the story is MacKenzie. That was really good,” Martinez said after the loss.

“He pitched really well, pitched six innings. His changeup was really good, but his fastball was awesome. He pitched well. He pitched really well.”

The manager said Gore’s late-season development spurt will benefit the younger left-hander, who heads into the winter after a long break.pitcher) sluggish.

“He’s great. He’s fantastic. We want him to finish strong and get some confidence before we go into the winter break,” Martinez explained. “But he’s really, like I said, taking advantage of all the pitches right now and doing really well. He’s working really hard.” [Pitching Coach Jim] Coach Hickey has been working with him on attacking the strike zone and hitting up front, and he’s done a great job.”

Cavert Lewis discovers something:

Keivert Lewis was hitless for 19 at-bats over the previous five games, but he had a strong game in Tuesday’s series opener at Miami, going 3-for-4 with a double, a single and a home run to record his 20th multi-hit game of the season and finish one triple shy of the cycle.

“He held back some pitches, threw the ball a little higher and hit some balls,” manager Davey Martinez told reporters after the team’s 6-2 win over the Marlins.

“It was really good to see him having a good day today.”

“Just not trying too hard, finding my pitches and believing in myself,” Lewis said. Quote from MASN’s Bobby BlancoHe talked about what went right on his three-hit night in Miami.

“I’ve been working on some things in the cage so I just need to come up with a plan and bring it into the fight.”

When asked what the focus of his work inside the cage is, Lewis said it’s pretty simple.

“I’m swinging for strikes,” Lewis explained, “and like I said, I’m not trying to do much more than that, I’m just trying to hit it more down the middle.”

“For me, the key for him is to stay consistent,” Martinez said of Ruiz’s hitting development this season. “He has to learn what he did today and focus on doing it again tomorrow.”

“Today he hit a lot of balls down and he hit the ball up. He’s really good at hitting the ball up. If he can keep that up he’ll be able to swing the bat. We all know he’s got unbelievable bat-to-ball skills.”

“I think he thinks he can hit any pitch hard, but he needs to understand the strike zone a little bit more.”

Getting consistently good at-bats over the next six-plus years from D.C.’s presumed No. 1 catcher would mean a lot to the restarting Nationals, considering he’s in the second year of the eight-year, $50 million contract he signed with the team last year.

“He’s definitely going to help us offensively,” Martinez said. “I really believe Keivert is a guy that can hit 20-25 home runs. We saw a little bit of that last year, and for him, it’s just hitting the ball, working hard, and you can see that coming out of him.”

“For him, it’s all about chasing, it really is. So if he just focuses on swinging for strikes, he’ll be fine.”

Before Tuesday’s game, Martinez spoke at length about Ruiz’s development as a catcher, noting that defensive metrics have shown him improving as a catcher throughout the season and that he’s “liked Ruiz a lot more” recently.

“The great thing is he’s not playing defense at the plate right now,” Martinez said.

“He’s done a really good job. He’s been working together. [Nationals’ Catching & Strategy Coach] Henry [Blanco]”He’s been performing throughout the year and just getting better and better. So to me, that’s a bonus for us right now. I want him to continue to get better and finish the season strong defensively. And I want him to not let his hitting carry over to his defense. It’s two things.”

“But I think it’s just a product of him really working hard and really talking about it. Him and Henry have worked really hard on sequencing, calling the game, throwing a little bit, blocking the ball, everything. So it’s good to see him progressing.”

The manager said the move to take a knee while playing defense has made a big difference as Ruiz tries to adjust to the increased demands of the game for a young catcher in 2023, and Martinez said it has had a positive effect on Ruiz’s play.

“When he was on his knees and standing on his feet, it was hard for him to get down on his knees to hit low balls,” Martinez explained. “The reason he got down on one knee was to steal the low balls. He’s gotten a lot better. We’ve talked to the umpires about it, and they seem to say that when he gets down on one knee and hits low balls, he sees the ball a lot better, so it’s definitely helped him.”

Bonus Quote – Davey Martinez talks about the Old School Crew:

Davey Martinez has been very impressed with 22-year-old outfielder Dylan Cruz, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2023 draft, in his first few weeks in the big leagues.

“He’s really learning,” Martinez said. “He’s a guy that sits at the top of the dugout, watching the pitches, watching what the pitcher does, what he does, watching our at-bats.”

Is it unusual these days for a young player to watch a pitcher play live from the top step of the dugout rather than on an iPad?

“I always say it’s old school,” the coach told reporters, “I mean, he doesn’t run to an iPad. He sits there and he watches the game and he learns. That’s pretty cool.”

Photo: Megan Briggs/Getty Images

After all, this is what Martinez (and many before him) did in the days before there were iPads in the dugout and instant stats and footage on opposing pitchers.

“You learn a lot by watching the game,” Martinez said. “That’s how I was raised as a player, and the guys before me and the guys after me. You can learn a lot from an iPad, but you can learn a lot from watching the game. And he does that. He’s got a lot of experience with pitchers, [they] How to attack right-handed hitters, what they’re going to do, the spin of the ball, the changeup, how it’s working.

“He was batting first the other day and immediately [Andrés] I was telling Chaparro, ‘His slider’s a little sharper than I thought it was, so bring the ball up,’ so it was awesome to hear him talk about that.”