A sense of normalcy in Nationals' first spring game with fans

Normalcy - or, at least, some semblance of normalcy - returned to Florida today.

On an 82-degree Sunday afternoon in Jupiter that included abundant sunshine at times and popup showers at others, the Nationals and Cardinals played a baseball game. At 1:05 p.m., Victor Robles dug in at the plate and took a 94-mph fastball from Jack Flaherty for strike one.

Trea Turner singled and advanced Andrew Stevenson to third on a hit-and-run. Josh Bell took a 3-2 slider at the knees for a walk, and home plate umpire Ángel Hernández got death stares from the St. Louis dugout and began trending on Twitter.

Erick Fedde used his cutter to escape a first-inning jam. Kyle McGowin used his slider to strike out a pair in the fifth. Kyle Schwarber threw out a runner at the plate. And then a bunch of prospects on both sides got a chance to finish out the nine-inning game, officially a 4-4 tie after minor league shortstop Jackson Cluff let a slow roller get under his glove with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to bring two runs home.

It all looked and felt right, whether there in person or watching from afar. But more than anything, it sounded right. Because, for the first time in nearly a year, there were fans in the stands.

"It was awesome," manager Davey Martinez said in a postgame Zoom session with reporters. "To be able to hear a crowd today, it was nice. Hopefully this is a good sign, and we'll start getting more and more as we progress."

Sure, attendance at Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium was capped at 1,500. Fans were restricted to groups of no more than four, each of those clusters separated from others. Masks were mostly, but not entirely, worn.

It wasn't 100 percent normal. But it was as close to normal as the Nationals have experienced in a long time.

"You're going to have to give me a little bit of time, because the first at-bat of every year I get a little bit of adrenaline going," Turner said after departing the game in the fourth. "So I don't know if it was the fans or just getting back out there, but it was nice to have people out there. It was good. There was definitely some energy."

Under normal circumstances, spring training games are low energy. It's as relaxed an atmosphere as you'll ever find major leaguers perform under. But just as the Grapefruit League serves to get these guys ready for what lies ahead in April and beyond on the field, this spring it's also serving as a welcome ramp-up to what (hopefully) will be full return of tens of thousands of fans to games this summer and fall.

"It was exciting," Fedde said. "There was a little more buzz when you walk out to the field and start playing catch and getting into the bullpen. It was fun. It reminded me of older times. I'm just really happy to be back out there with fans."

As you'd expect in the first game of the spring, there was some considerable rust that needed to be knocked off. Fedde looked shaky out of the chute, giving up a leadoff single to Tommy Edman and then back-to-back walks to Matt Carpenter and Paul Goldschmidt to load the bases before recording his first out of 2021.

A subsequent wild pitch on a sinker way down and away brought home a run and left Fedde in a most precarious position against Nolan Arenado. But the right-hander, competing for a spot in the Nationals rotation for what feels like the umpteenth consecutive spring, showed some mettle and struck out Arenado with three cutters away, then made a nice play on a comebacker off Paul DeJong's bat before inducing a flyout from Yadier Molina to escape the inning on 28 pitches.

"Definitely first time out, you don't want to be in a jam," Fedde said. "But I'm happy (Martinez) had the confidence in me to get out of it. Fastball command just wasn't great today, but being able to battle through it and make some big pitches to stop a blow-up inning, that gives me confidence moving forward."

Fedde figured out how to right his wayward ship mid-inning. Flaherty had no such luck. The Cardinals ace was all over the place, following up his game-opening strikeout of Robles by allowing the next seven Nationals batters to reach base, three via walk.

There was some solid contact mixed in there as well, with singles by Turner, Schwarber, Starlin Castro (making his return from a broken right wrist) and Robles, all of it producing three runs in the top of the second and knocking Flaherty from the game.

"I saw some good at-bats," Martinez said. "A lot of deep-count at-bats for us, putting the ball in play. That was nice."

They might've scored more than those three official runs, if not for a "What just happened?" moment in the top of the first. Despite loading the bases with one out, Flaherty and his teammates walked off the field, as did the Nationals' runners.

Why? Because Flaherty had already thrown 23 pitches, and for the first two weeks of exhibition play, Major League Baseball is allowing managers to prematurely end any half-inning once a pitcher's count gets that high to help prevent overuse and injury.

Even when it feels like things are getting back to normal, there are still a few reminders that we're not quite there yet.