Facing New Orleans:
Davey Martinez knew his club was in for a tough match. Phillies‘ Starting pitcher Aaron Nola took the mound last night at Citizens Bank Park. Nola entered the game with a 1.42 ERA (2 runs conceded in 12 innings 2⁄3 IP) and slashed .098/.229/.268 in two starts against the Nationals in ’24.
“Nola’s tough, he’s got a good curveball,” Martinez told reporters ahead of the second of four games in Philadelphia.
He has chosen to bat primarily against right-handed batters, but the 31-year-old right-hander is batting .239/.284/.461 against lefty batters this year, while his batting average is .236/.288/.371 against righty batters, so the difference isn’t that great.
Nola predicted the Washington attack would be thwarted, scoring 6. 2⁄3 He threw 111 pitches, allowing no runs, seven hits, two walks, and four strikeouts. Thanks to the efforts of his teammates, he took a 2-0 lead in the top of the third inning.However, Nationals starter Patrick Corbin only had one hit in four at-bats. 2⁄3 Innins) and Jacob Burns (1 2⁄3 Robert Garcia (who pitched a scoreless seventh inning) and Derek Law (who pitched a scoreless eighth inning) took the mound.
Then in the top of the ninth, the Nationals scored two runs off Phillies right-hander Carlos Estevez. Since May 21, he has allowed just one earned run..
Luis Garcia Jr. singled in the top of the inning, advanced to second on a single by Juan Yepes, then scored on an RBI single by Jose Tena to make it 2-1. Nasim Nunez, who replaced Yepes, then scored from third on a grounder to second by Jacob Young, and the Nationals tied the game at 2-2 after the eighth and a half innings.
Kyle Finnegan tried to force extra innings in the bottom of the inning, but allowed a leadoff hit by Brandon Marsh that advanced the runner to second on a throwing error by Alex Cole in right field. Marsh advanced to third on a bunt by Cal Stevenson, who reached base when third basemen Tena and Finnegan both rolled the ball to the left side.
An intentional walk to Kyle Schwarber (after leading 3-0) loaded the bases, then Trea Turner hit a fly to deep left field for a walk-off win, putting the Phillies up 3-2.
“We gave up big runs by not bunting, getting behind Schwarber and throwing the ball away, which allowed us to keep a runner on first base. That was the difference between winning and losing,” Martinez said after the loss.
“If he bunted and got to second, we’d walk Schwarber and then Turner would hit a fly ball and get two outs, but there were just too many errors in that inning.”
Breaking down what went wrong on the bunt specifically, Martinez said it was simply poor judgment by Tena at third base.
“Jose went back on base thinking Finnegan would pick the ball up and try to get the leadoff runner out, but we had to get the out at that point. We had to get the out quickly and our closer was there. If we get the out, we can make a difference.”
“The guys fought,” he added. “They had a closer, but we came back and scored two runs to tie the game.”
And they did it with some good at-bats that they struggled to put together early on.
“They had a good at-bat, a good at-bat to tie the game that inning,” Martinez said.
“But then that mistake. As they say, when you play a good game like this, mistakes are what cost you.”
What is the difference between early and late in the game?
“I think we’re going to swing a lot bigger,” he said. “They try too hard, they want to score early, and then all of a sudden they start to settle down a little bit and start moving the ball the way they should, which we’re really good at. We use the whole field and hit the ball hard.” [James] Wood, double to left field. Garcia, hit to center and hit to left field. If we can do that, we’ll be OK.
“But the guys on the bases have to do it too. They get on base and all of a sudden they’re swinging and trying to hit the long ball. Sometimes you just need the ball in the gap.”
Manager Martinez’s team had runners in scoring position and left nine runners on base, but finished with one hit in nine at-bats and lost by one run.
And Nola was pretty good over six innings.
“Nola wasn’t bad tonight,” Martinez said. “He was pretty good. He hit where he needed to hit and didn’t give us much room to hit. When he got into tough situations, he pitched really well. But we’ve got to learn how to take what they’re giving us, hit the ball wide of the field and hit the ball in the middle of the field, like we did in the last innings, and we did that really well. We’ve got to do that from the first inning onwards, and good things will happen if we do that.”
