Nats start second half with win over Reds (updated)

The Nationals seemed refreshed coming back from the All-Star break. Although they had just received the news that Josiah Gray will need elbow surgery to end his season, the team was in high spirits in the clubhouse before the second-half opener against the Reds, especially with first-round pick Seaver King and third-rounder Kevin Bazzell officially signing their contracts and spending time with the team.

After ending the first half by losing six of their last eight games, the Nats were looking to start the second half on the right foot. They were able to do so by putting their offensive struggles behind them and exploding for an 8-5 win over the Reds in front of a sellout crowd of 38,402, most of whom were sticking around for the Carly Rae Jepsen postgame concert.

The first challenge for the bats out of the break was Frankie Montas, who spun six shutout innings against them for a win on Opening Day. But this was a very different Nats lineup than the one the veteran right-hander faced in Cincinnati back in March.

Joey Meneses, Joey Gallo and Eddie Rosario were not on the lineup card. James Wood, Juan Yepez and Trey Lipscomb were. And the new faces certainly made a difference.

Wood got things going after Jesse Winker walked and Yepez singled ahead of him in the fourth. The rookie pulled an inside cutter from Montas to drive in two runs with a single to right and give the Nats a 2-1 lead. The second run scored without a play at the plate because Rece Hinds' throw home hit the 6-foot-7 outfielder in the back at first base, bringing some laughs from Wood and the Nats dugout.

The “Good Times” kept rolling as Keibert Ruiz, on the heels of a rough first half in which he hit .220 with a .584 OPS, followed with a two-run home run to right-center to make it 4-1. The Nats really need Ruiz to have a strong second half, so this was a good start for the young catcher.

“I've been trying to set up myself for four months," Ruiz said after the game. "So I don't want to think about that. I just got to go day-by-day and keep going.”

The fireworks didn’t stop there. After Yepez’s single in the fourth extended his career-best hitting streak to 11 games, he stepped up to the plate with two runners on base in the fifth and smacked a three-run home run to left to give the Nats a 7-1 lead and end Montas’ night.

“A dream come true, I have to say," Yepez said of his first homer with the Nationals. "Like every time you step a foot on the field, it's a dream come true. It's not easy to be in the big leagues and I'm just glad to be here.”

While he typically doesn’t get run support during his starts, the Nats gifted Patrick Corbin that six-run lead for his 35th birthday, which proved to be plenty with the way he pitched.

Entering the night 1-9 with a 5.57 ERA on the year, the veteran left-hander tossed six strong innings of one-run ball on three hits, no walks and six strikeouts.

“Corbin was good. Corbin was really good," manager Davey Martinez said. "He pitched really well. That's what we needed after four days off.”

The only run against him scored on a single, stolen base and single for a 1-0 deficit in the third. But that threat ended there, thanks to Lipscomb making a nice play to get a sprinting Elly De La Cruz out at first base.

Corbin was in a jam again in the fourth when Tyler Stephenson reached second base on a two-bag error by Yepez at first with two outs. But the Reds catcher was called out for interfering with Lipscomb trying to field a routine grounder.

Other than that, it was a very clean outing for Corbin, as he tossed three perfect innings out of his six and only allowed one baserunner after the fourth.

“I think we got ahead early and mixed it up pretty well there," Corbin said. "They can be aggressive at times, so that was just the plan coming in. Kinda just made them aggressive, which helped. Located the fastball on both sides, mixed speeds with the slider. So just overall, pretty good throughout and our offense stepped up huge today.”

Corbin had a lot of success throwing slower sliders, a handful going at around 71 mph and as slow as 64.1 mph. It's something the southpaw said he's been working on to get more strikes.

“I've kind of been mixing it in a little bit more trying to get some strikes at different times," Corbin said. "Going over their lineup, we saw some opportunities for that pitch, so maybe used it a little bit more than we have in the past.”

Things only got sweeter as the Nats plated one more run in the seventh.

Jacob Young led off the seventh with a hustle double to left. Then with two outs, the Reds intentionally walked Winker to bring up Yepez again. But Buck Farmer threw a wild pitch to allow Young to score, with Winker getting credit for a stolen base and advancing to third on an error by Stephenson.

“Our offense showed up," Martinez said. "We were patient. We got a couple of big home runs. And Woody with a nice base hit, two RBIs. So we played well.”

Then Jacob Barnes struck out the side in the seventh and Jordan Weems pitched a scoreless eighth. But Jose A. Ferrer, reinstated from the 60-day injured list before the game, gave up three runs in the ninth, one of which was inherited by Derek Law, who also allowed the batter he walked to score to make this game seem closer than it actually was. So All-Star Kyle Finnegan needed to come in and record his 26th save to close out a game the Nationals led 8-1 going into the ninth.

But despite the news on Gray and the ninth-inning stumble, the Nats came away with a big win.

Hey, it’s just the first game. And this is crazy. But the Nats came out of the All-Star break with a big win. So here comes a big second half, maybe?