Lopez finds his inner "caged animal" in dominant start

ATLANTA - Reynaldo Lopez, to anyone who meets or watches him for a few minutes, is a quiet young man. Inside that calm veneer, however, is a 22-year-old pitcher who wants to take on the world and exudes the confidence necessary to do just that.

Consider Lopez's reply to a question following tonight's 8-2 Nationals victory over the Braves, one in which the rookie right-hander struck out 11 batters over seven superb innings of what was, to that point, a tightly contested ballgame.

"At the beginning of the game, I just felt like I was a caged animal," he said via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "I just wanted to get out there and be very aggressive. And I was, and was very effective."

Whatever untamed beast he was trying to channel, Lopez found a formula that worked. On a night in which his team desperately needed quality innings out of its starter, the youngest member of the rotation turned in a performance worthy of accolades.

As manager Dusty Baker described it: "He was dynamite."

Don't let the final score fool you into thinking this was a cakewalk for the Nationals. It turned lopsided during a ghastly top of the eighth by the Braves pitching staff and defense, which gave up five runs despite allowing only two hits.

Up to that point, this was a nip-and-tuck ballgame, with Lopez afforded little margin for error. This, on the heels of a taxing series in Colorado that required 16 1/3 innings of work out of the Nationals' bullpen, putting extra demand on Lopez to deliver a big-time start tonight at Turner Field.

Baker tried to downplay that storyline earlier in the afternoon, trying to shield his young starter from thoughts of added pressure in this start, only the fourth of his big league career.

"No, not really," Baker said. "I wouldn't tell him that, anyway. And I'm sure he already knows that. He's seen what our bullpen's like, and what it's been like the last few days."

Indeed, Lopez knew the situation without being told.

"Yes, even the games in Colorado, I was seeing what was going on," he said. "So I was telling myself that I was going to come out here and try to throw seven, eight innings to give the guys a break. That was my mentality coming here, seeing what was going on in Colorado."

Lopez's evening started off with a bang. He struck out both Freddie Freeman and Matt Kemp to end the first inning, then kept striking out batters left and right. By the time he completed the third inning, he already had eight strikeouts to his name, the same total Max Scherzer had at that point during his 20-strikeout game earlier this season.

Lopez couldn't keep up that pace, but his 11 strikeouts still represented the second-most ever by a Nationals rookie pitcher, surpassed only by Stephen Strasburg's 14 in his big league debut.

Perhaps Lopez's most impressive work came in his final frame. With the Nationals clinging to a 3-2 lead after six innings, and his young starter's pitch count at 90, Baker could have sent up a pinch-hitter and entrusted the game's final nine outs to his bullpen. But the veteran manager let the kid continue, and that move paid off.

Despite getting himself into a two-on, two-out jam, Lopez escaped the top of the seventh by getting pesky leadoff man Ender Inciarte to ground out, capping a fantastic 101-pitch performance.

"That was a tough call," Baker said. "But when you get a chance, if the guy's still throwing the ball well, it's his game. You'd hate to have somebody come in and mess up in 30 seconds what took him 2 1/2 hours worth of work.

"Plus, that's the maturity of a pitcher. He grew up right there. Sometimes you have to let them grow up. You can't always rescue them. He's a calm young man. He made the pitches when he had to. And he's getting better and better."

Catcher Pedro Severino, who also worked with Lopez last week during his first career win, noticed the confidence in his batterymate at that critical juncture of the game.

"He just feels comfortable," Severino said. "He feels comfortable because he's pitched before, and he did a great job. He was like: 'It's my game.'"

Lopez's first two starts in the big leagues offered a tease of his electric repertoire, but still left plenty to be desired. His two most recent starts, however, offer a deeper picture of just what this confident young pitcher can do, and how far he's come in a short time.

"The first two outings, especially the first one, I definitely was a little nervous and just didn't have any confidence going into it," Lopez said. "Obviously, it was my first time in the big leagues. The biggest thing is the confidence I've felt these last two games, I kind of feel like it's more my game. I go out there and I definitely pitch that way. The confidence I have, it just feels normal now."