Washington Nationals news & notes: Nats sweep Giants with 6-1 win in finale; MacKenzie Gore tosses five scoreless + more

Goagios:

Mackenzie Gore allowed 2 hits and 1 run in the 5th inning. chicago cubs Although he hit well in the first start of the second half, he retired in the 6th inning and gave up 2 more runs.

Gore threw 106 pitches in the game, tying the all-season record.

“We wanted him to throw about 105-110 pitches,” manager Davey Martinez said of the Nationals’ starter’s plans for the trip at Wrigley Field.

“He was throwing a good ball. And I still think so — he was still in the tank a little bit when I took him out.”

Washington’s 24-year-old left-hander had two walks and six strikeouts in the first inning to win the game 7-5 and earn a double.

“He pitched really well,” Martinez said. “He was behind the hitters once, but he got away with it. And he came back and gave us what we needed.”

“If you can get into the seventh, it means you’re doing some things right,” Gore said. Quoted by MASN writer Mark Zuckerman. “But that’s why this game is so hard. You have to throw one ball at a time. And if you’re not good enough, you can hit a home run.”

His manager thought Gore had only done one bad thing in Chicago.

“‘You made one mistake, other than that you pitched really, really well, so focus on the positive things you did instead of the negative things,’ Martinez said of his advice to Gore going into the final game of the series. San Francisco Giants Sunday afternoon in DC.

“And he likes to go back in time and look at all the negative things he’s done, but he’s done a very good job.

“He’s improving every game, so today I want him to go out and attack the strike zone and get ahead of hitters and finish them off like he did last game.

“The big thing for him is to get through the game and keep the pitches down. And make sure it doesn’t blow up on him in high leverage situations.”

In the final game against the Giants, Gore ended the inning with a lead single and one-out walk in the opening frame of 20 pitches with a double play, followed by a two-out free pass in the second of 20 pitches to end the second scoreless inning, but it wasn’t always efficient.

He hit a two-out double in the third inning of 16 pitches and pitched in the fourth inning with a 3–0 lead, but allowed back-to-back singles early in the inning. But two Ks and a fly to Wright followed, and the left-hander stalled both runners for another 16-ball inning, then kept four clean sheets to reach a total of 72.

With two Ks and a nice play by Dom Smith on a pop fly that he caught while hitting the railing of his home dugout, Gore made it past the fifth scoreless frame with 90 pitches total, but the starters didn’t even come out in the sixth, at which point the score was 6-0 in favor of the Nats…

Mackenzie Gore quotes: 5.0 IP, 4H, 0R, 0ER, 2BB, 8Ks, 90P, 56S 3/1 GO/FO.

Gore racked up 19 whiff strikeouts in the game (7 fastball, 6 curveball, 5 slider, 1 changeup), collected 12 Cold Strikes, 9 of which were scored with Four Seamers.

The key, according to his manager, was Gore’s ability to get out of the predicament he found himself in.

“The ability to stay behind and stay at bat and get to the next pitch to get the opponent out. He did well today,” Martinez said. “His pitching numbers were up a little bit and I didn’t want to push him further than he was after the last game, so he did really well. He fought and pitched well when he needed to, which was really good. His ability was really good, he needed to get the ball over the plate and he did well today.”

Key moments:

• Lane Thomas and Joey Meneses hit singles with one and two outs in the bottom of the first off Giants opener Scott Alexander. (Thomas stole second base before Meneses hit), Stone Garrett walked the bases against new pitcher Anthony Descraffani, and Dom Smith hit a low 0-1 changeup with a two-run shot to right field to put the Nationals up 2-0 by one.

• Thomas singled in the bottom of the 3rd inning to take the lead and stole two (Second stolen base in the game), and in the third, Garrett set up an RBI chance, grabbing a 1-2 sinker over the middle of the at-bat from Deskraffani with an RBI double to center to make it 3-0.

Post-match – Davey Martinez on Lane Thomas’ big day:

“Oh, I said to him today, ‘You’re a Five Tool player.’

• Riley Adams and Luis Garcia hit back-to-back singles off Descraffani, and the Nationals started in the bottom of the fourth. CJ Abrams’ fly to right was deep enough for the relatively slow catcher to take a 4-0 lead from third base. Thomas doubled for the fifth, scored Garcia, and stole his fourth bag of the game to advance to third, but was stuck there.

• Riley Adams hit a 2-out solo on a 2-0 inside curve from a right-handed pitcher to lead 6-0 and scored for the fourth time this season with limited action. Recorded 103.3 mph off the bat. 348 foot shot.

Bullpen action:

Jordan Weems went scoreless on behalf of Mackenzie Gore, but the combined shutout attempt ended when Amos Willingham hit a first-run home run by Joc Pederson in the top of the seventh in the 6-1 Nationals.

Mason Thompson scored the eighth and threw a scoreless frame before Joe La Solas handled the home side’s ninth. Final Score: very! 6-1.

Back page – clean nothing:

“A win today would give the Nationals their first series sweep of the season and their first sweep since the June 14-16, 2021 game against Pittsburgh,” the franchise emphasized in its pregame notes in its third of three games against the Giants in Washington, D.C., adding that it would be their first San Francisco sweep since the 2019 Magic season. world series The champion fought the series on the road. To finally wipe out the Giants in the capital, we have to go back to 2015.

Don’t say Mr. 1-0 Today was going to bite into the sweep talk before the game. I said don’t say it. However, he was asked about the possibility. Did they have the game in mind?

“No,” Martinez told reporters. “As I said earlier, we are trying to be on our feet. Do our job. Let’s win 1-0 today. All I can say is they will come out today and compete. They will play hard.

“If all goes well, we’ll go out and win, and it’s just another win for us.”

All went well for the Nationals, ending their losing streak.

After the game, Martinez said, “I played the way I wanted to play all weekend.”

“There was a lot of energy, so it was a lot of fun. It was a great weekend for us. So I was proud of the boys. I saw us go from first to third, I saw us change doubles when needed, made some good plays, stole some bases, got big outs. Everyone was on point. So it was a fun weekend.”

CJ Abrams on fire:

Hit a home run on Saturday (10th time this season), CJ Abrams extended his streak to 11 games (10 out of 11 hits) since moving to the leadoff spot in the Nationals lineup.

Abrams batted 19 for 46 (.413/.449/.674) in 11 games, rising from .233/.281/.393 on July 6 to .259/.306/.434 this year. Of course, he heated up before manager Davey Martinez pushed the 22-year-old shortstop to the top of the standings.

“He has a .361 batting average and a .410 on-base percentage.” (5BB, 3HBP)slugging percentage .588 (2B 6, 3B 2, HR 4) And he has stolen base attempts 13 of 13 in his last 26 games,” his club said in the pregame notes for Sunday’s series finale against the Giants at Nationals Park.

Photo Credit: Greg Fiume/Getty Images

Abrams was 16-for-16 in stolen base attempts going back to May 3.

The manager said the decision to move him up was to see the young infielder develop.

“We talked about the running percentage before the season, just for him to get to base,” Martinez said last weekend.

“We fought him a little bit about staying at the top of baseball, just hitting the ball hard and having a consistent good swing at every turn. [to move him up].

“It’s time to get him out there and hold him accountable. Like I said, he’s taken that to heart and he’s been playing really well for us.”

Martinez elaborated on how Abrams has continued to perform well in recent weeks.

“He’s not trying to do too much,” said the director. “He’s trying to stay in the middle of the field.

Photo Credit: Greg Fiume/Getty Images

“I mean, once he got going, I said to him, ‘Whenever I hit a single, it’s a double,'” continued Martinez. And he’s running and doing all the little things we asked him to do, and he’s done really well. “

The sixth-year captain repeated many of the points above after Abrams hit his 10th home run in Saturday’s win.

“He’s getting better,” Martinez said. “He’s getting better day by day. What I like about him is that he’s playing consistent baseball. He’s not just hitting. But he’s defending well.