Nats squander García's clutch homer in 9th, lose in 10th (updated)

With the threat of rain looming all day, the Nationals hoped their decision to move first pitch of today’s series finale against the Giants up from 4:05 p.m. to 12:05 p.m. would give them the best chance of playing the entire game. The only question was how long it would take for the game to be played, and how many times it would be disrupted by the weather.

In the end, it took nearly 5 1/2 hours of actual time, two disruptions totaling 2 hours, 2 minutes – one of them coming in the third inning, one in the eighth – and then dueling, last-ditch, three-run rallies in the ninth inning before the Nationals handed the game to the Giants in an ugly top of the 10th.

Despite getting an emotional lift from Luis García’s clutch, three-run homer that forced extra innings, the Nats still lost 9-5 when they failed to make three consecutive plays in the infield, allowing the winning run (plus three more) to score.

"It was good until it wasn't," said manager Davey Martinez, whose team was charged with four errors, three of them in the ninth and 10th, the final five runs surrendered all unearned. "We played in sloppy conditions, and we got sloppy in the last two innings."

A game that had been knotted at 2-2 since the fifth turned on its head in the ninth. Twice. The Giants got a bases-clearing double from Mark Canha on a 1-2, two-out pitch from Kyle Finnegan to take what looked like a commanding, three-run lead. Then García drove a 1-2, two-out pitch from Camilo Doval into the first row beyond the left field wall for a three-run, game-tying homer in the bottom of the inning.

"That was one of the more improbable homers I've seen in a while," Finnegan said.

But the Nationals couldn’t keep the Giants from retaking the lead in the 10th, despite several fielding opportunities to do so. CJ Abrams made a good decision to try to throw automatic runner Jerar Encarnacion out at third base on a grounder to short, but his throw was wide of the bag. Brett Wisely then converted a squeeze bunt nobody appeared to see coming, bringing the runner home.

Then Patrick Bailey tried to sacrifice, but Ildemaro Vargas dropped Robert Garcia’s throw at third, extending the inning even longer. And that came back to haunt the Nationals when Michael Conforto delivered a two-out, two-run single to left, with Matt Chapman adding an RBI single of his own to complete a four-run rally (all of them unearned) and suck away whatever enthusiasm was still left in the home dugout.

"Those plays should be made," Martinez said. "And we do make those plays. For whatever reason, we didn't today, and it cost us some runs."

As if everything that preceded it wasn’t eventful enough, today's ninth inning alone was worthy of a novel.

Attempting to pitch the final inning with another round of rain leaving the field a soupy mess, Finnegan got himself into a bases-loaded jam via a single and two walks. He struck out Chapman, bringing Canha to the plate with two outs in a tie game, everything now hinging on this at-bat. Finnegan was up in the count, 1-2, and fired a 96 mph fastball well above the strike zone, but Canha managed to get the bat on the ball and poke it to right field for the go-ahead hit.

Finnegan crouched to a knee on the wet grass, lamenting the hit, but that only cost him more. Right fielder Alex Call charged in and fired to the plate, hoping to somehow limit the damage to one run. But Call’s throw sailed well wide of the plate, and because Finnegan wasn’t backing up the play, the ball wound up in the camera well, allowing all three runners to score.

"I felt like I executed the pitch, and he hit it where we weren't," Finnegan said. "I went to go cover first, saw that it got through and just didn't really have enough time to get back to where I needed to be. ... It's just tough. You feel like you're on the verge of getting out of it. And all of a sudden, you're in a bad spot."

But the game wasn’t over, and the Nationals weren’t done. Keibert Ruiz and Travis Blankenhorn each drew a walk against Doval in the bottom of the ninth, and that ultimately brought Luis García to the plate with two on and two out.

He fell behind in the count 0-2, the second of those pitches called a strike despite its location well down and away. Then after taking a ball, García got a 98 mph cutter up in the zone and found a way to drive the ball the other way. Even then, he didn't think he drove it enough.

"I didn't feel like I hit the ball as well as it went," he said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "But I saw Conforto backing up, backing up, backing up, fading into the wall. And I saw it leave the ballpark. I was surprised, because I didn't think I had enough of it to get it out."

García had just enough on it, the ball traveling 351 feet to narrowly clear the wall, just enough to give him reason to dance around first base in celebration, having given the Nats new life at the end of an already-long day.

"There's not enough words to describe a feeling like that," he said. "Excitement, obviously. But especially in any kind of moment where I'm able to help the team get back in the game, it's just always very exciting, very happy."

Nearly five hours earlier, this game kicked off as planned at 12:05 p.m., and managed to reach the top of the third before the rain started coming down too much to continue. By that point, both teams had plated a run, the Nats feeling fortunate DJ Herz didn’t surrender more during a harrowing top of the first.

The rookie left-hander has already shown he can be a tad erratic, but this felt like the most extreme example to date. He faced seven batters in the inning, allowing a leadoff double. He walked three, struck out two, threw a whopping 38 pitches (only 17 of them strikes) and somehow emerged with only one run across the plate.

Herz, to be sure, was aided by an extremely generous strike three call by Stu Scheurwater on a 2-2 changeup well out of the zone to Canha. Canha complained a bit, but Bob Melvin complained even more and was quickly ejected by Scheurwater. It was a particularly key strikeout, because it came with the bases loaded, but when Herz proceeded to fire four straight balls to Encarnacion, he wound up walking in a run anyway.

Herz would compose himself enough to get through the rest of the first and the second without any more damage (aside from a hefty pitch count). He ran into more trouble after waiting out the 50-minute rain delay in the third, surrendering a ground-rule double to Mike Yastrzemski that brought home one run, fortunate the trailing runner wasn’t allowed to score after the ball skipped over the fence in left-center.

That’s as far as Martinez would take his young starter, pulling him after 74 pitches in only 2 2/3 innings, the game still very much there for the taking.

"I was very careful with DJ," Martinez said. "Because he had 63 pitches coming back out (after the delay), and I wanted to make sure. I said if we can just get him through Yastrzemski, we should be OK. We got him there, so I wanted to get him out."

The Nats lineup did its part to score a pair of runs off Giants left-hander Kyle Harrison, manufacturing each of them. Call singled and stole second in the bottom of the first, ultimately scoring on Ruiz’s RBI single. Then García Jr. singled and stole second in the bottom of the fifth, ultimately scoring on Abrams’ sacrifice fly to right.

That tied the game, and that’s where it remained as the two teams proceeded, dodging raindrops and waiting out delays until they could finally finish this contest. Who knew how much drama still awaited?

"It's tough to hit in those conditions, and it's tough to pitch," Finnegan said. "Both teams are out there in the rain. It's not making any excuse. It just is what it is."