Bullpen works overtime to ensure doubleheader sweep

PITTSBURGH – After combining to close out a tight victory in the opener of Saturday’s day-night doubleheader, Derek Law and Kyle Finnegan were asked jokingly if they were ready to pitch again in the nightcap.

“Of course,” Law said. “It would only be fitting, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Finnegan said. “Yeah, I’ll be ready for Game 2.”

Some 5 1/2 hours later, after both indeed had pitched in the nightcap to help the Nationals sweep the doubleheader against the Pirates, it was pointed out the questioner was joking with the earlier suggestion.

“I wasn’t,” Law said with a smile. “I had a feeling.”

At this point, it’s no surprise when Law appears in another game out of the Nationals bullpen. It’s when he doesn’t ever take the mound. The veteran right-hander remains the National League leader with 79 relief innings pitched this season, and he’s done that in spite of a recent stint on the 15-day injured list with an elbow strain.

It wasn’t just Law on Saturday, though. Four members of the Nats bullpen – Law, Finnegan, Jacob Barnes, Robert Garcia – each pitched both ends of the doubleheader, a nearly unprecedented feat in today’s game.

“It was tough,” manager Davey Martinez said after the nightcap. “These guys are going to be down (Sunday). But they accepted their roles. They told me before the game they were good to go. Finnegan actually made a big point of saying: ‘If I’ve got a chance of closing the game, I want to be in there.’ They held it together, and they pitched well. They kept us in the game.”

Finnegan had to exert a lot of physical and mental energy just to get through Game 1. He allowed four of the first five batters he faced to reach base, one of them scoring, and found himself facing a bases-loaded situation, his team clinging to a two-run lead with one out in the ninth.

Having just pitched around the left-handed Rowdy Tellez to load the bases, the All-Star closer (who has admittedly been in a rut for more than a month) went after the right-handed Bryan De La Cruz and got him to ground into a game-ending double play on two pitches.

“Tellez, I didn’t want to make a mistake to him,” Finnegan said. “So I felt better about facing De La Cruz, and was able to throw a really good first pitch splitter. Felt good about the way it was coming out, and thought it would be a good ground ball pitch. We doubled up on it, and he hit it just like you hope he would. Tailor-made double play.”

Life was a whole lot easier for Finnegan in the nightcap. Though he had to warm up in a hurry after the Nationals rallied to score four runs off Aroldis Chapman with two outs in the top of the ninth, he calmly retired the side – his first 1-2-3 inning since July 21 – to earn his 36th save, his second of the day.

Law, meanwhile, retired all six batters he faced across the two games. The way he just went about his overtime work like it was no big deal, you’d never have known he just returned from the IL at the start of the week.

“Honestly, to me it’s really not that bad,” he said of pitching in both ends of a doubleheader. “It’s almost better than going three in a row. Most of the time, your body is already feeling pretty good. I know you have a little bit of downtime, but if you can keep up with that process in between games, it’s really not that bad.”

Law has now pitched in 65 of the Nationals’ 142 games, same as Garcia, tied for fourth-most in the NL. Each is on pace for 74 total appearances at season’s end, with Law still having a shot at becoming the club’s first reliever to pitch 90 innings since Tyler Clippard in 2010.

“He’s that guy,” Martinez said. “We talk about it all the time: He does not like days off. He says he feels better the more he pitches. Today we used him in two games, and he did really in the second game as well.”