Gray's home run problem resurfaces in Nats' latest loss (updated)

As he impressed throughout April and May with the best sustained stretch of his young career, one question loomed over Josiah Gray: Could he continue to keep the ball in the yard all summer, avoiding the back-breaking home runs that spoiled his 2022 season?

Four starts into June, the initial answer to that question is not an encouraging one. Gray is serving up homers again, and this afternoon it cost him more than in any previous outing this year.

Despite early support from his teammates to the tune of a five-run lead, Gray gave it all back and more in an 8-6 loss to the Cardinals, the critical sequence coming in the top of the fifth when he surrendered back-to-back homers to turn a game the Nationals once controlled into yet another demoralizing loss.

"The offense has been phenomenal for me out there pitching. I can't applaud those guys enough," Gray said. "I've just got to be better and not squander a five-run lead."

The Nats’ 12th loss in 14 games differed from most that preceded it, because they actually hit well in this one. They jumped all over St. Louis starter Jack Flaherty, jumping out to a 5-0 lead after two innings and putting Gray in prime position to take care of the rest.

But things began devolving for Gray during a two-run top of the third, then completely cratered in the top of the fifth. By day’s end, the 25-year-old who owned a 2.77 ERA at the end of May found himself the owner of a 3.64 ERA on June 19.

The difference? After surrendering three total homers over his previous 10 starts, Gray has now served up six in his last four outings.

"The two today, I think, were probably poor pitches," he said.

For a team having just been swept by the Marlins and struggling to score runs with any consistency, the Nationals couldn’t have drawn up a much better start to this one. Two innings in, they sported a 5-0 lead, knocking Flaherty around the ballpark like it was October 2019, not June 2023.

Lane Thomas doubled twice and scored twice, practically making his acquisition from the Cardinals for two months of Jon Lester worth it right there. Joey Meneses doubled. Corey Dickerson drove in a pair with a two-out single. Luis García drove in one with a sacrifice fly and drove in two more with a two-run single. All told, the Nationals opened the day 8-for-10 against Flaherty.

There were, however, opportunities to deliver a knockout blow to Flaherty that were squandered, in part because of two outs made on the bases to help get the Cardinals starter off the hook. Dickerson was thrown out trying to go first-to-third on Dominic Smith’s single to right, ending the first inning on a sour note. And García was thrown out trying to stretch his two-run single into a two-run double, bringing an abrupt halt to the second-inning rally.

"I don't mind those at all," manager Davey Martinez said. "I talked to Corey; he said he thought the ball kicked away from (right fielder Lars) Nootbaar. And I was really happy Luis tried to get to second base on that ball."

Two innings in, Flaherty had already thrown 46 pitches and clearly was on the ropes. Yet he walked off the mound at the end of a lightning-quick bottom of the sixth with a pitch count of only 83, churning out four scoreless frames on a scant 37 pitches. Then he returned for the seventh, and though he didn’t finish that final inning, he still somehow departed without reaching the 100-pitch mark on the day.

"We came out hot swinging," Thomas said. "The middle of the game, I thought guys were still swinging it well. ... Some of those days, it just sucks some of those balls don't get through with guys on."

None of that would’ve been a problem had Gray simply taken the 5-0 lead his teammates handed him and never relinquished control of the game. Alas, that proved far too daunting a challenge for the young righty.

Gray’s afternoon got off to a perfectly fine start. He completed two scoreless innings on 30 pitches, recording three strikeouts and erasing the only walk he issued in the game on a subsequent double play.

Then the bottom of the third commenced, and an entirely different game broke out for Gray. He didn’t get some help from his defense, most notably when Victor Robles initially broke in on a Tommy Edman drive to center that eventually landed on the warning track for an RBI triple. But the hits came fast and furious regardless.

The Cardinals got two runs back in the third. They put themselves in position to come all the way back in the fifth with two more hits from the bottom of their order. And then Brendan Donovan and Paul Goldschmidt put a definitive stamp on the comeback with back-to-back blasts.

Donovan hammered an inside fastball from Gray to right for the three-run homer that tied the game. Before the crowd could get too worked up over that, Goldschmidt drove a Gray curveball to left for the go-ahead homer.

"With a team like that, you've got to make your pitches," Martinez said. "Get to two strikes, you've got to finish them off. Today, he just couldn't do that."

Thus did Gray’s day end on a far different note than Flaherty's. Unlike his counterpart, Gray got off to an efficient start. And unlike him, he wound up only lasting five innings with a pitch count over 100.

"Our offense, they've given me big leads a lot of times this year," he said. "Going out there, I want to say no matter what, just keep us in the lead. So that fifth inning there, I wanted to get some quick outs and get the offense back in the dugout so we can hopefully knock Flaherty out of the game. I just didn't do my job there."