PITTSBURGH – Jake Irvin had done everything in his power to win this game for the Nationals and put an end to their three-game losing streak, precisely the kind of performance the situation called for.
Irvin authored seven scoreless innings on a frigid Tuesday night, and doing it on an economical 87 pitches. And now all he could do was watch from the visitors’ dugout at PNC Park like everyone else and hope his teammates could finish off the Pirates.
That’s been anything but a given for the Nats bullpen through the first 16 games of the season. But on this night, the two reliable back-end relievers did their job without breaking a sweat, Jose A. Ferrer and Kyle Finnegan teaming up to complete a 3-0 shutout that was very much needed at this stage.
Irvin was more than worthy of his first win of the year. Ferrer was more than worthy of his fourth hold of the year. And Finnegan was more than worthy of his sixth save in as many attempts, finishing things off with a scoreless ninth to complete a 2-hour, 16-minute ballgame.
The Nationals (7-10) got back on track after three straight road losses in Miami and Pittsburgh, with a chance still to capture this four-game series if they can win the next two days.
This game did include a frightening moment in the top of the sixth, when Paul DeJong took a fastball from Mitch Keller off the left side of his face and went down in a heap. As DeJong lay on the ground and Nationals director of athletic training Paul Lessard rushed to apply a towel to his bleeding cheek, Keller and Pirates catcher Henry Davis crouched nearby and watched, hoping it wasn’t as bad as it looked.
DeJong was ultimately able to walk off the field under his own power, still holding the towel to his face, with a cut visible below his left eye. Amed Rosario took his place in the lineup and at third base, everyone in the Nats dugout waiting to get official word of DeJong’s condition.
With CJ Abrams on the injured list and Alex Call getting the night off, Davey Martinez decided to just move everybody up a slot in the lineup, making James Wood his leadoff hitter. Wood responded with the kind of instant offense a manager can only dream of.
Wood worked the game’s first at-bat to a full count, then got a fastball from Keller and destroyed it. The ball finally landed 445 feet away, clearing the center field stands and bouncing out of the ballpark altogether, towards the Allegheny River. It was the longest of Wood’s 15 career major league home runs, five of those coming in his last eight games.
That one run had to hold up for five innings, because neither pitcher allowed anything else.
Irvin permitted only one Pittsburgh batter to reach base through the fourth, and that came via Tommy Pham’s excuse-me dribbler to third for a second-inning single. Eschewing long sleeves despite the 38-degree wind chill, the proud Minnesotan otherwise was both sharp and efficient, completing those first four frames on 52 pitches.
Irvin got himself into his only jam in the fifth, with two on and nobody out. And he promptly responded by getting Adam Frazier to fly out and Isiah Kiner-Falefa to ground into a double play.
And because he completed the sixth on a mere 76 pitches, Irvin was given the opportunity to re-take the mound and attempt to become the Nationals’ first starter to complete seven innings this season.
By that point, the lead had grown to 3-0 thanks to another quality plate appearance from Nasim Nuñez. The young shortstop, making his second straight start in place of the injured Abrams, worked a 10-pitch at-bat against Keller, then lined a two-out, two-run single to center to provide his starter some much appreciated cushion.
Nuñez at that point was 4-for-6 since his promotion from Triple-A Rochester, picking up right where he left off this spring in West Palm Beach, where he batted .419 and delivered a .970 OPS.