Nationals' July woes continue as Braves deliver seventh straight loss

August 30, 2024

Aníbal Sánchez still has a few tricks in his 38-year-old arm. On Thursday night, in his first major league appearance in nearly two years, he threw a 60-mph something and later froze Ronald Acuña Jr. with a cutter for a called strike three. A few change-ups did float like butterflies of a distant past. And outside of a pair of two-run homers, Sánchez had a run of retiring 11 of 12 batters, giving the Washington Nationals a shot to beat the defending champion Atlanta Braves.

But they ultimately lost, 5-4, at Nationals Park to drop their seventh straight. The Nationals (30-61) are 1-12 in July and have won one of their past 14 games overall.

“For two years off, I feel really good,” Sánchez said. “The Braves right now are a pretty hard team. I made two mistakes, and they took advantage of them.”

In the first, Sánchez walked Acuña, the Braves’ leadoff hitter, before Dansby Swanson rocked a change-up to the left field seats. Then with two down in the fifth, in a 3-2 count against Michael Harris II, in a matchup that lasted 10 pitches — a ninth of Sánchez’s total — he threw a high sinker that Harris swatted out to right.

One of the few remaining members of the Nationals’ 2019 World Series team, Sánchez last pitched on a big league mound in September 2020. He didn’t pitch in 2021, signed a minor league deal in March and spent the past 3½ months sidelined by a cervical nerve impingement in his neck, an injury suffered by sleeping wrong on the team’s charter flight back from spring training. His final line in five innings: four hits, four earned runs, two walks and five strikeouts. But watching him face the Braves (54-37), it was fair to ask why a younger, higher-upside pitcher wasn’t getting a chance.

This is a rebuild, right? Or to use General Manager Mike Rizzo’s preferred word, it’s a “reboot” centered on finding the club’s next core, not trotting out familiar faces for nostalgia’s sake?

That might have been a sounder take in April, back when Sánchez was first expected to join the rotation. Since, the Nationals have cycled a few rookies through their staff. Joan Adon, 23, made 12 starts before he was demoted with a 6.95 ERA. Jackson Tetreault, 26, made four before he landed on the injured list with a stress fracture of his right scapula. And Evan Lee, 25, had four appearances before he went to the IL with a left flexor strain.

The Nationals aren’t exactly brimming with starters. Paolo Espino, a 35-year-old journeyman, moved to the rotation in early June. Josh Rogers, recovering from a left shoulder impingement, is an option to fill another hole in Sunday’s series finale. So in that sense, Sánchez’s return was well timed.

Where did four runs come from? Between the two blasts off Sánchez, the Nationals stirred a few rallies against Braves starter Kyle Wright, who completed seven innings on 103 pitches. They kept hitting late, too. Juan Soto charged the group with two more hits, raising his on-base-plus-slugging percentage to .896. Josh Bell belted a second-deck homer in the first. Nelson Cruz trimmed the deficit to two with an RBI single in the eighth.

But after Maikel Franco took Kenley Jansen deep in the ninth, Luis García singled, reaching as the tying run, before Bell stranded pinch runner Victor Robles at second base with a strikeout. Earlier, Wright was helped along by Harris, whose cross-body throw nailed García at home on Soto’s single in the fifth.

“He had to make a better slide. He kind of just fell,” Manager Dave Martinez said of García, who had room on the inside part of the plate because Harris’s throw pushed catcher Travis d’Arnaud back. “When I watched it on replay, he took a really wide turn. He’s got to make a better turn, and when he sees the catcher that far out, he’s got to slide on the inside of him. He just kind of ran into him.”

What would García have done differently?

“I would have tried to pick up Cruz, who was on deck,” he said in Spanish through a team interpreter. “The catcher blocked him a little bit, and I was unable to read him early. I would have tried to find him sooner and obviously try to slide toward the inside of the plate.”

How did Tyler Clippard fare in his first game back? Facing Harris, Acuña and Swanson, Clippard worked a scoreless eighth and struck out Acuña swinging on a high splitter. And because Clippard threw just 10 pitches, Martinez sent him back out for the ninth, getting six outs from the 37-year-old. Clippard was recalled Wednesday after closer Tanner Rainey went on the 60-day injured list with a sprained ligament in his throwing elbow.

“Stepping into the stadium again with the curly W, it gets me a little bit, man,” he said Thursday afternoon. “It’s emotional for me. I’m happy. This is going to be a fun few months.”

How did Washington clear roster space for Sánchez? To make room on the 40-man roster, the Nationals put Stephen Strasburg on the 60-day injured list with a stress reaction in his second and third ribs (or, put more plainly, continued side effects from the surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome that he underwent last summer). And to make room on the active roster, reliever Mason Thompson was optioned to Class AAA Rochester, where he recently completed a rehab assignment.

In five major league appearances since he came off the injured list, Thompson pitched five innings, faced 16 batters and allowed nothing but a single. But the Nationals want to be careful with the hard-throwing 24-year-old, who arrived last summer in the trade for Daniel Hudson. Explaining the move Thursday, Martinez said he wants Thompson to pitch back-to-back days with the Red Wings. Plus, more multi-inning relievers are needed as insurance for a shaky rotation.

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