Gray scratched after rain delay, Nats lose to Braves (updated)

As he warmed up in the right field bullpen, Josiah Gray’s task for the evening was clear. Give the Nationals a chance to beat the Braves tonight? Sure. But more important than that, go deep enough in the game to alleviate pressure on a pitching staff that faces a daunting task this week with eight games scheduled over the next seven days, and with a replacement starter already needed Tuesday as Stephen Strasburg heads back to the injured list.

So consider what happened right around 7 p.m. as a worst-case scenario for the Nats. With rain falling and a heavy storm cell fast approaching, the grounds crew rolled out the tarp, the start of the game ultimately was delayed 1 hour, 33 minutes and Gray (because he had already warmed up) was scratched altogether out of caution by the organization.

"He sat for a very, very long time, and I'm not going to do that to him," manager Davey Martinez said. "I mean, he was in uncharted waters right there, so I decided after an hour and a half that we weren't going to send him out, and he was good."

This game was now in the hands of an already depleted bullpen, with Erasmo Ramírez charged with the unenviable task of starting the game and going as far as he could possibly go.

The ensuing results shouldn’t have surprised anyone. Ramírez gave up six runs in three innings, and the Nationals slogged their way through a 9-5 loss that brought a fitting conclusion to a downtrodden day for the organization.

And if that wasn't demoralizing enough, Juan Soto slipped in the dugout and banged his right knee on the corner of the bench prior to the top of the ninth, was noticeably gimpy in the field after that and had to be pinch-hit for in the bottom of the inning.

"He said he could go out there, but he was limping pretty good when he went out to the field," Martinez said. "He came back and he said he started to get really sore, so ... I said I don't want to chance it. So we'll see how he feels tomorrow."

Already reeling from the news Strasburg is going back on the IL after feeling discomfort following his long-awaited season debut in the wake of last summer’s thoracic surgery, the Nats wanted to pin their hopes on one of their best young starters tonight. Then they had to scratch Gray’s appearance due to the long rain delay.

It seemed the 24-year-old could come back and start Tuesday, but the club will play it safe and hold him back a couple more days because he threw 37 warm-up pitches in the bullpen before the rain delay.

"We'll push him back; we'll treat this as a bullpen day," Martinez said. "And then I'm going to see how he feels tomorrow, and then we'll make a decision when he'll start again."

So it will now be Triple-A Rochester right-hander Jackson Tetreault making his debut, pitching in Strasburg’s place. A seventh-round pick in the 2017 draft, the 26-year-old is 5-3 with a 4.19 ERA in 12 starts, but unlike other bigger-name prospects in the minors is on full rest.

None of this made tonight’s game any easier to stomach.

Ramírez was thrust into a thankless position, asked to start on last-minute notice after making 20 previous relief appearances this season, only one of which lasted more than two innings. The 32-year-old journeyman did his best to give his team a chance, and he took advantage of an over-aggressive Braves lineup to complete the top of the first on only nine pitches.

But things quickly devolved from there. Ramírez served up a leadoff homer to Travis d’Arnaud in the second, then two more runs that inning on Dansby Swanson’s single to left. He then served up back-to-back homers in the third, with Marcell Ozuna and Adam Duvall each taking him way deep to left for a 6-0 lead.

"I did my best to get ready and execute my pitches the best I can," Ramírez said. "But I missed a bunch of pitches against hitters that are just hot. Whatever mistake I had, they just stuck a bat on it."

Through it all, Martinez left his emergency starter on the mound. The manager simply couldn’t summon a reliever until Ramírez had thrown every pitch available in his arm on this night. That total wound up being 54, at which point Martinez began to ask his bullpen to take over.

Steve Cishek churned out two scoreless innings on 29 pitches, and when the Nationals lineup came to life with one run in the fourth and three more in the fifth, this briefly looked like it might become a competitive game.

But Jordan Weems put an end to that, surrendering a two-run homer to Swanson during a laborious, 34-pitch top of the sixth as a long and frustrating afternoon and evening on South Capitol Street moved closer to its completion.

"It was tough," Martinez said. "I made the call to not pitch JoJo, and I think I made the right call."