Washington Nationals news & notes: Nats beat Tigers in extras, 5-4; Mitchell Parker in Detroit + more…

4 earned runs:

Mitchell Parker made his 10th major league start last week, throwing 71 pitches in 7 innings, allowing 3 hits, 1 home run, 2 earned runs, 2 strikeouts and 1 walk.

It was the 10th time the 24-year-old left-hander has allowed three or fewer runs in his first 10 major league starts, and Parker’s consistency has impressed, if not wowed, his manager.

“We talked about this earlier, but this is a long year,” Davey Martinez told reporters. “… It’s tough, but… I’m not surprised by what he’s doing because he’s calm. He catches the ball, he attacks it, he moves quickly, he’s focused. If he’s not having a good day, or he’s not playing well, you might want to take him out early, but he pitches and he just competes. Like I said, he competes with every pitch. He makes good pitches. Not overwhelming, but every time he pitches, every pitch he throws, he knows what he wants to do and he gets the outs quickly.”

“We’ve taken the same approach every time: try not to overthink it and attack them,” Parker said after the game. Quote from MASN’s Mark Zuckerman“And when we hit them, obviously good things happen. You just don’t want to think about it too much.”

He also showed impressive efficiency, pitching seven innings using just 71 pitches.

“He was great because he attacked the strike zone and they were aggressive but he got the outs early,” Martinez said. “He pitched really well.”

In Parker’s 11th start, the left-hander allowed a double with two outs in the first inning but managed to hold the runner to runners on base in the second inning, retired all three batters in the third inning, allowed a single with one out in the fourth inning, held the runner to no runs on 59 pitches, and walked a batter with one out in the fifth inning but got two outs, but his start was ruined.

Photo by Nick Antaya/Getty Images

An error by the starting pitcher allowed Andy Ibáñez to hit the ball back to the mound, putting a runner on second. Mark Caña walked, then Riley Greene cleared the bases with a triple to right-center field. Luis Garcia Jr. made an error on a cut throw to third base, and Greene scored on a Little League grand slam to give the Tigers a 4-3 lead. Jesse Winker walked in the bottom of the third to add a run in the Nationals’ own half, and CJ Abrams tripled to bring the Tigers back in the bottom of the fifth, before scoring on a sacrifice fly by Lane Thomas.

“He threw strikes when he needed to, like he always does, and he threw really well,” Martinez said after Parker finished with just two whiffs and 17 strikeouts against Tigers batters.

“He threw the ball wrong again. Everything was going well. [fifth] First inning. I walked the No. 9 hitter on four pitches, and I started to advance some batters, and he’d only thrown about 60 pitches at the time, so I said, ‘He can get through this, he’ll be OK.’ And then I had one big error with two outs.

“But we got through it. I’m proud of him. He pitched really well and kept us in the game, so well done.”

“I held back as the game sped up. I tried to throw before I caught it. So I need to do better,” Parker said of the error.

“I do it a lot during spring training. I’ll do it a lot while I’m here. I have to do it. I can’t let it happen.”

“I think he’s going to have some more PFP in the near future. Martinez was asked what his message to starting pitchers is regarding misplays.”

“PFP. We’re going to go for the PFP. Seriously. I sat there, I’m not gonna lie, but I sat there scratching my head like, ‘It doesn’t get any easier than this to get the ball.’ But that’s what makes this game fun. Sometimes stuff happens, but like I said, I’m really proud of the guys that competed tonight.”

What lessons did Parker take away from the pricey E:1?

“Catch the ball and throw it,” he said with a laugh. “Don’t make the game go too fast. The game is fast, but not any faster than it needs to be.”

The young starting pitcher acknowledged that the error probably stayed in his mind and affected his subsequent at-bats.

“Maybe I dragged it out a little too long,” he said, “and then at some point I brought it all back, but I definitely kept it in my head a little too long.”

The boys don’t give up:

Trailing 4-3 in the eighth, the Nationals tied the game on a one-out single by Lane Thomas and a grounder to short by Jesse Winker, giving Idol Maro Vargas a chance to pinch-hit and a sacrifice fly to make it 4-4. With the score tied after the ninth, they went into extra innings and took advantage of a wild pitch/strike three with a runner on second and Abrams at bat, advancing to first and third with no outs and a sacrifice fly by Thomas to take a 5-4 lead, before Kyle Finnegan duly put the Tigers away in the bottom of the tenth.

“[The character] “Their performance tonight was great,” Davey Martinez said after the series-opening win. “We were leading, we lost the lead, they fought hard, the guys at the back of the bullpen came together and we were able to outscore them by one run. Sometimes that’s what you need, but I’m proud of my guys. They fought, they hung in there and we ended up winning the game.”

Monday was a hard-earned day off, today is 1-0:

Last Sunday, in their 17th game in 17 days, manager Davey Martinez’s team turned the tide with seven runs in the fourth inning to secure an 8-5 victory, marking the second time in two four-game series against their NL East rivals this season that they have won three of four games against Atlanta.

Coach Martinez has been truly impressed with how he has managed to draw out the effort from his team over the course of 17 straight games.

“I’ve been saying that since spring training: This team is fun. They have a lot of energy. And that was proven in this last series. 17 games in a row with no days off, they’re fighting, they’re working. These last few games have been great. I’m proud of these guys. They just keep going. They don’t give up. They got a really needed break. And now we’re heading to Detroit on Tuesday with a 1-0 record.”