Herz, fellow rookies lead Nats to victory in Atlanta (updated)

ATLANTA – There are more promising young players to come, especially the one scheduled to make his major league debut Monday night in D.C. But the Nationals already are awfully young even before Dylan Crews joins them.

Of the nine players in today’s starting lineup, five were rookies. So was the starting pitcher. That made this first time the franchise has started six rookies in a game since 2010, according to Elias Sports. And they added a reliever as well today, bringing the total number to seven.

Sometimes youth has gotten the best of the Nats, who have a penchant for sloppy baserunning, sloppy defense and a lack of clutch hitting. And sometimes it comes together beautifully as it did this afternoon, when DJ Herz tossed five scoreless innings, Drew Millas and Jacob Young contributed clutch hits late and Eduardo Salazar helped bridge the gap to Kyle Finnegan, who notched a four-out save to close out a 5-1 victory over the Braves.

"Everybody's just figuring it out," Herz said. "And it's fun when we put it all together."

In avoiding a weekend sweep at Truist Park, the Nationals also clinched the season series over Atlanta, having gone 7-4 with two games still to go next month on South Capitol Street. It’s the first time they’ve done that since 2017.

"That's a stepping stone for us," said Davey Martinez, who took over as manager in 2018. "Teams that we play, they always say the same thing: 'You guys play hard. You just don't give up.' That's a good thing. Now we've just got to understand how in some of these close games, how to finish games, get that extra run. When we do that, we're going to be fine. I'm seeing some really good things, especially from our young guys."

Most of today’s contributors were among the youngest players on the field, headlined by Herz. The rookie left-hander brushed off a rough first inning to post five zeros with only one hit allowed, extending his second-half surge.

In seven starts since the All-Star break, Herz now sports a 2.62 ERA and 1.165 WHIP while striking out 11 batters per nine innings.

"It all happens just by attacking the zone and settling in," he said. "It all plays. I'm not chasing it. I'm just kind of letting it happen."

Herz, for whatever reason, has often needed a little time to find his groove after taking the mound, often laboring through a long first inning and then cruising after that. So it wasn’t terribly surprising when he loaded the bases in the bottom of the first today via two walks and a hit-by-pitch.

It was highly encouraging when he got himself out of that jam, inducing a ground ball out of Whit Merrifield, to end the scoreless inning on 27 pitches. At which point he took off.

"I think it's just letting it go and focusing on the next batter," Herz said. "I think it's been like that three times in a row. It'll stop eventually. But just keep grinding through them, and they'll eventually change."

Feeling equally confident in his fastball, changeup and slider, Herz went to work against the Braves’ injury-depleted lineup. The only hit he surrendered was a two-out single by Orlando Arcia in the second. The only other baserunner he allowed was via a one-out walk of Merrifield in the fourth.

And he finished with a flourish. Herz struck out the final four batters he faced, getting Sean Murphy and Jarred Kelenic on sliders and Arcia and Jorge Soler on fastballs, hopping off the mound after a perfect bottom of the fifth.

"He's impressive," Millas said of his rookie batterymate. "I think the changeup really sets it all up. It's a wipeout changeup, and he really gets good pronation and it looks a lot like his fastball. When he's working both of those off each other, and then he can throw a slider in the zone at the bottom, he's a really tough matchup for any hitter."

That long first inning, though, ultimately prevented Herz from going any deeper into this game. His pitch count already up to 92, he was pulled after five scoreless innings of one-hit ball, Martinez entrusting a 1-0 lead to a bullpen that took the loss in each of the weekend’s first two games.

And it took only two batters for history to repeat itself when Jacob Barnes left a 2-0 fastball right down the pipe to Matt Olson, who blasted it 429 feet to center field for the game-tying homer.

Ah, but hope was not lost. Because for the first time all weekend, the Nationals finally delivered at the plate in late, clutch situations. With some big-time help from the Braves.

During the course of a three-run rally in the top of the seventh, there were two misplays by Merrifield at second base (one of them charged as an error), a passed ball charged to catcher Sean Murphy and a wild pitch unleashed by reliever Luke Jackson.

But there also were some long-awaited clutch hits by the Nats. Millas, getting a rare start behind the plate, perfectly executed a hit-and-run to advance Keibert Ruiz from first to third. And seconds after Ruiz scored on the wild pitch, Young lined an RBI double to left for his team’s first hit with a runner in scoring position in 13 opportunities over the last two games.

"It's what we live for," Young said. "It's why we play this game: To come through for the team to win those types of games in big moments. I think it's natural to want to do it. You just have to let those emotions play in a good way. You can't let them overtake you."

The back end of the bullpen protected the newly created three-run lead, which extended to four in the ninth when Young scored all the way from first on CJ Abrams' bloop single to center. Salazar recorded five outs, giving the rookie right-hander 13 innings with zero earned runs allowed this month. And Finnegan took over from there, with a four-out save in his first appearance in a week, to make sure the young guys’ efforts today didn’t go to waste.

"We're rookies. We're young guys. But a lot of us have now played a good amount of baseball up here, and it's still baseball," Young said. "You just want to play your game, get used to whatever it is up here that's different, find your routine and be able to come together and start winning baseball games now. So it carries over into next year."