Corbin bests Cole as young Nats topple Yankees (updated)

If Oct. 30, 2019, represented the pinnacle of Patrick Corbin’s career, it arguably also represented the nadir of Gerrit Cole’s career. As the former came out of the bullpen to win Game 7 of the World Series for the Nationals, the latter sat in his bullpen and helplessly watched it all unfold, ostracized for not appearing in what to that point would’ve been the biggest game of his life.

The two pitchers’ careers have gone in completely opposite directions since, with Corbin devolving into the least effective starter in baseball the last five seasons while Cole moved to New York after signing a record deal and won a Cy Young Award. There’s no comparison between them in the years since.

Except on this night, when Corbin rose to a challenge like he perhaps hasn’t since that glorious October night in Houston and Cole looked decidedly human facing a young and hungry lineup that knocked him out after five innings to give the Nationals a most satisfying 4-2 victory.

Behind back-to-back home runs from rookies Andrés Chaparro and José Tena, plus the first two hits and stolen base of Dylan Crews’ career, the Nats opened up a lead on Cole. Corbin (six scoreless innings) and four relievers then did the rest, holding down one of the most feared lineups in the sport in impressive fashion to pull off one of the team's most impressive wins of the year.

"Patrick did an awesome job today going out and giving us a chance to win," said Crews, who caught the final out of his first major league victory. "That's his job, and he executed it perfectly. It was a great crowd today. Our bullpen did an awesome job today, too. Overall, I thought today was awesome. And we won, so it was a great day."

There are far too many pertinent backstories to this series, and to tonight’s game in particular. In December 2018, the Yankees were widely expected to sign Corbin (a Syracuse, N.Y., native) but were stunned to be outbid by the Nationals’ six-year, $140 million offer.

Corbin, of course, went on to win Game 7 with three perfect innings of relief against the Astros while Cole sat in the Houston bullpen twiddling his thumbs. Two months later, Cole was a Yankee, signing a record nine-year, $324 million megadeal that might never have been offered had Corbin gone to the Bronx one year earlier.

Corbin is a very different pitcher now, and he has struggled to adapt over the years to reinvent himself as he has aged. But tonight he showed how it could still be possible.

Effectively mixing up his sinker, slider and a cutter that clocked in about 3 mph faster than usual, he had the Yankees off-balance all night. He allowed only two hits (a first-inning double by Aaron Judge, a fourth-inning single by Giancarlo Stanton) and walked only two batters. He struck out six, including Judge, Stanton and Juan Soto (who of course homered off Cole in that World Series).

"Against these guys, you just try to keep it out of the middle of the plate," said Corbin, who has won his last two starts after winning only two of his first 25 outings this season. "You want to attack them ... but you try to work around things like that against an offense that hits a lot of homers."

And when it looked like his night be over after Judge drew a two-out walk in the sixth, Corbin wound up enjoying one last hurrah. Davey Martinez strolled to the mound and looked toward the bullpen as the crowd of 34,334 stood to salute the starter’s effort. Then Martinez (who for the second straight night was unable to attend his postgame press conference due to a minor medical issue) turned around and walked back to the dugout as the crowd roared louder.

And when Corbin got Stanton to pop up to end the inning, he proudly walked off the mound having tossed six scoreless on 104 pitches.

"That's cool sometimes, when a manager comes out like that in that situation there," Corbin said. "It's a big spot, still a close game. But I was feeling good and wanted to finish my inning there. That was a cool feeling."

The Nationals led 3-0 at the time and could have led by several more runs had they simply been able to convert any of their countless scoring opportunities against Cole. After going 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position Monday night, they went 0-for-10 tonight.

But they didn’t need clutch hits when they hit for the kind of power they showed in this one. Chaparro, who originally signed with the Yankees out of Venezuela in 2015 but didn’t make his major league debut until earlier this month with his third franchise, launched a 376-foot blast to left for the first home run of his career. Seconds later, Tena drove Cole’s next pitch to right-center for his second career homer.

"Very special, and very exciting," Chaparro said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "That's the whole purpose, for us to go out there and try to contribute and try to help the team win any way possible. That's what we're here for, so it was very special we were able to do that."

The Nats also saw Crews record the first two hits of his career, including a 104.4-mph double off the left field wall off Cole. The just-promoted rookie would later steal third with a nifty slide around Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s tag and score his first career run when Joey Gallo’s grounder to first was booted by DJ LeMahieu.

"Obviously, we've got a young lineup right now," said Crews, one of eight members of tonight's lineup 26 or younger. "It just shows how we can all impact the game. We're all playing really hard right now, and we want to win."

Even after all this, the Nationals still needed nine outs from their bullpen against a fearsome lineup. They got them, but not without a few moments of terror.

CJ Abrams, Luis García Jr. and Gallo turned a dazzling 6-4-3 double play to get Jose A. Ferrer out of a seventh-inning jam. Jacob Barnes stared down Judge with the bases loaded and nobody out in the eighth and got him to ground into a run-scoring, 6-4-3 double play. And Kyle Finnegan allowed a ninth-inning run and brought the tying run to the plate but recorded the final two outs he needed to secure his 33rd save and ensure this electric night would ultimately be an enjoyable night for the home team.

"Playing like this, this is eventually what playoff baseball is," said Barnes, one of the few remaining veterans on the roster. "Playing for meaningful games in September, that's the atmosphere you're going to experience. I think being involved in that, especially the young guys, you learn every day. The more of these type of games we can have, the better."