PITTSBURGH – They weren’t going to come right out and say it, but the Nationals understood the monumental task staring them in the face this evening.
His name is Paul Skenes, and he’s the most intimidating pitcher on the planet right now. The Nats had managed to avoid the hulking Pirates right-hander during his ballyhooed rookie season. They finally ran into the buzzsaw tonight at PNC Park and learned firsthand what everyone else around baseball already knew.
The Nationals did manage to push across a couple of late runs against Skenes, but that wasn’t nearly enough on a night in which they once again saw their bullpen turn a potentially winnable game into a lopsided defeat, this time by a count of 10-3.
"There's got to be a little more intensity from this bullpen when they come into games to keep it close," a clearly agitated manager Davey Martinez said. "Right now, there's two guys back there, we can't even get to them: (setup man Jose A.) Ferrer and (closer Kyle) Finnegan."
You can't use your setup man and your closer if you're trailing by multiple runs, and that's exactly what has happened during three straight losses for a team that felt great about itself when it opened this 10-game road trip with its fourth straight win.
Three Nats relievers (Colin Poche, Jackson Rutledge, Eduardo Salazar) combined to allow six runs in 3 2/3 innings tonight. That doesn’t include the two runners Poche inherited from starter Brad Lord who also scored.
The Nationals (6-10) have now played 16 games this season. In only one of those games has the bullpen kept the opposition from scoring.
"For me, it's the walks that have really been hurting us," Martinez said. "We walk guys, and they score. We've got to come in and throw strikes."
The obvious storyline entering the night was the first career professional matchup between Skenes and Dylan Crews, the former LSU teammates forever linked not only for winning the 2023 College World Series but for going 1-2 in the MLB Draft a few weeks later. Truth be told, they’re not playing at the same level at this stage of the game.
Skenes has already established himself as one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball, the reigning National League Rookie of the Year and now perhaps the early frontrunner for NL Cy Young in his sophomore season. Crews is still trying to prove he can succeed in the majors, though to be fair he still has less than two months of time in the majors at this point.
So the two head-to-head encounters tonight were, not surprisingly, lopsided in Skenes’ favor. He twice got Crews to hit weak ground balls, once back to the mound, once to third base, his batting average falling to .109. The drama of those moments was extremely limited.
"He executed some pitches, and it was his night," Crews said. "His job is to get me out, and to get us out, and that's what he did."
Then again, it’s not like anyone in the Nationals lineup had considerable success against Skenes. For five innings, he allowed only two batters to reach base: Paul DeJong on a bloop single to center that could’ve been caught by Oneil Cruz, James Wood on an errant curveball that barely nicked his toe and then ricocheted off Endy Rodriguez’s bare hand, forcing the Pirates catcher to leave the game in the top of the first.
A Nats lineup that drew eight walks Sunday in Miami tried to show as much patience as possible and did drive Skenes’ pitch count up somewhat. But he wasn’t about to throw four balls out of the zone to anyone, not with that awe-inspiring arsenal that included a fastball that averaged 98 mph, a changeup that averaged 88 mph and the so-called “splinker” that averaged 94 mph while darting down and to the arm side like a combination splitter and sinker.
"Man, that changeup is crazy," shortstop Nasim Nuñez said. "I was telling the umpire on the field: It's something seeing it on TV and the video game. But once you step in that box and see it, I knew I had to make an adjustment real quick."
Finally, they inflicted a little bit of damage on the big right-hander in the sixth. Nuñez, getting his first start at shortstop in the wake of CJ Abrams’ hip injury, doubled to left-center to lead off the inning, then took third on an error by Ke’Bryan Hayes, then scored on Wood’s grounder to short. Wood would get himself into scoring position a few minutes later when Skenes misfired a pickoff throw for the second time in the game, then crossed the plate on Nathaniel Lowe’s RBI single to left-center.
But that’s all they got off Skenes, who departed with two runs allowed (one earned) over six strong innings.
"The biggest thing with him is, you can't try to do a whole lot," Martinez said. "You've just got to stay on the ball, use the middle of the field. We got better towards the end."
Skenes also departed in line for the win, thanks to his teammates’ ability to make consistent contact off Lord, even if that didn’t result in a bunch of runs.
Making his second major league start following three relief appearances, Lord didn’t enjoy one truly clean inning tonight. He was helped out by a pair of double plays and a pair of outs the Pirates ran into on the bases, but that only minimized the damage.
Lord surrendered one run in the first, another in the third and got himself in trouble in the fifth with a leadoff walk followed by a single and a sacrifice bunt. To the mound strolled Martinez, taking the ball from Lord and handing it to Poche in hopes the veteran left-hander could stop the bleeding.
"I was feeling good. I just kind of lost command there," Lord said of his final inning. "The body was still feeling good. I've just got to throw more strikes and compete in the zone."
Poche hasn’t stopped much of anything so far this season, and tonight was no exception. He faced four batters, retiring only one. He surrendered a pair of singles and issued his ninth walk in four official innings of work spread out over seven tortured appearances. Most importantly, he entered with a 2-0 deficit and departed with a 5-0 deficit.
The Nationals would chip away at that deficit and make it interesting. Interesting, that is, until the bullpen made it uninteresting again and ensured the current losing streak would reach three games.
"I always tell them: When they come into a game, it's a closing situation," Martinez said. "They've got to close that inning out, keep us in the game and give our offense a chance to come back."