Our Nationals have some fight in them after all.
After dropping two games to the San Diego Padres – one that was close until Sean Doolittle made a mistake on change-up in the ninth inning, and another that was close until manager Davey Martinez made the mistake of sending Wander Suero in to pitch the tenth – the Nats pulled out a satisfying 7-6 win in 11 innings Sunday.
After getting into a 6-0 hole after three innings, the Nats managed to claw back while throwing eight innings of shutout relief, winning the game on Matt Adams’ solo homer in the 11th.
Some new stars came through over the weekend as well.
Let’s start with Carter Kieboom, the 21-year-old rookie who looks like he has a job at shortstop as long as he wants one after being called up from Class AAA Fresno. He showed a penchant for power and clutch hitting, with game-tying home runs in the eighth inning of his debut Friday and in the fifth inning Sunday. The latter home run came after 20-year-old Juan Soto and 21-year-old Victor Robles had already gone deep, making the Nats the first major league team ever to have three players aged 21 or younger homer in the same game.
General manager Mike Rizzo has said he always knew Kieboom was a plus hitter. But Kieboom also played 29 innings of errorless defense, with the only questionable play being one where first baseman Adams closed his glove to soon on a wide throw – a play that was ruled a base hit for Hunter Renfroe. If Kieboom can keep up the defense and maintain anything close to his 1.058 OPS, the Nats will have a surplus of infielders when regular shortstop Trea Turner returns from a broken finger.
Then there was Adams, who rebounded from an 0-for-5 day by connecting on the game-winning shot in the 11th. Despite yielding most starts at first base to Ryan Zimmerman this season, Adams has made the most of his playing time against right-handed pitching, batting .313 and slugging .625 over the past three weeks. Last season, he had 18 homers and 48 RBI in 94 games for the Nats before he was traded away in an August salary purge. There’s little chance of that happening this year. With Zimmerman on the injured list with plantar fasciitis, an injury that has nagged him for weeks on end in the past, Adams will be the primary first baseman for the foreseeable future.
The biggest surprise of the weekend was Erick Fedde, who came up from Class AA Harrisburg and tossed four innings of two-hit, shutout relief with just one walk and three strikeouts. The right-hander hadn’t shown much in 14 previous games since 2017, all starts, but maybe he’s found a place as a long reliever. He should have at least earned a spot for a while on a team whose bullpen ERA of 7.34 is the worst in baseball by half a run. His work and a second straight day of scoreless relief from Joe Ross were huge contributions to another first for the Nats this season: a victory in which Sean Doolittle didn’t pitch.
The Nats still have work to do even to get back to .500, with an upcoming schedule that includes NL-Central leading St. Louis and a road trip through Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Los Angeles. But with emerging players who can turn in clutch performances, maybe the pressure will ease on some of the veterans, and the team can play with the confidence it needs to get on a winning streak.
