Nats shut out again to wrap up miserable road trip

CHICAGO – A road trip that began with a sweep at the hands of a playoff contender, saw one cornerstone of the franchise’s rebuild get demoted for disciplinary reasons and saw another flirt with a no-hitter, came to an end this evening with another loss that was dragged out a couple extra hours for good measure.

The Nationals’ rain-delayed, 5-0 loss to the Cubs completed a dismal, 1-6 final road trip of the season that didn’t include many uplifting moments.

From a three-game sweep in New York to three losses in four days at Wrigley Field that included CJ Abrams’ surprise demotion and MacKenzie Gore’s lone bright spot on the mound Saturday, the Nats now limp home to finish out the 2024 season with six games against a pair of contenders with plenty still at stake: the Royals (American League wild card) and Phillies (National League home field advantage).

At 69-87, the Nationals need to win three of those final six games to surpass last year’s win total of 71. The way they hit the ball on this trip, that could be a tall order.

They scored a grand total of 14 runs in these seven games, and 11 of those came in two contests alone. They were held to zero or one run in the other five games.

This was the 34th time the Nats have been held to one run or fewer. Only the White Sox (46), Reds (36) and Tigers (35) have done it more times. This was the 16th time they’ve been shut out, a total topped only by the White Sox (19), who today matched the 1962 Mets as the only teams in modern history to lose 120 games.

The forecast looked lousy all day, and sure enough rain fell steadily throughout the morning and early afternoon. With the Cubs officially eliminated from the National League wild card race Saturday, this no longer loomed as a “must-play” game, but the Cubs saw enough of a window opening later in the afternoon to delay first pitch.

Some 2 hours, 20 minutes later, the ballgame finally began, with about half of the announced crowd of 30,086 still in attendance. They were treated to early offense from the home team.

Mike Tauchman, moved into the leadoff spot after Ian Happ was scratched only minutes before gametime, blasted Jake Irvin’s third pitch to right for a quick 1-0 Chicago lead. Two batters later, the Cubs made it 2-0 via a walk and stolen base by Dansby Swanson, then an RBI single by Seiya Suzuki.

Irvin would settle down and retire eight of the next nine batters he faced but consistently fell behind in the count and saw his pitch count rise as a result. And when the bottom of the fourth arrived, it all came back to haunt the right-hander.

Michael Busch led off the inning with a homer that looked very much like Tauchman’s shot from three innings prior. And four batters later, Miguel Amaya went deep to left, a two-run blast that extended the Cubs’ lead to 5-0 and sealed Irvin’s fate.

His pitch count all the way up to 83, Irvin was pulled after the fourth. The five earned runs (four of them scoring via three homers) raised his ERA to 4.22 and spoiled his shot at getting the number below 4.00 by season’s end. He’s on schedule to start next Sunday’s finale against the Phillies, barring any change of plans by the Nationals.

With Irvin not in peak form today, the Nationals needed some semblance of offensive support. They didn’t come close to getting it against Cubs rookie sensation Shoto Imanaga, who tossed seven scoreless innings to lower his ERA to 2.91.

They had several opportunities to do something but went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position, wasting a leadoff double from James Wood in the fourth and a two-out double from Andrés Chaparro in the sixth.

They also saw Dylan Crews ground out with two on and two out in the fifth, the rookie extending his slump to 0-for-19, his batting average falling to .196 before he finally delivered a sharp single up the middle in the top of the eighth to get his average back up over the Mendoza Line.