CHICAGO – MacKenzie Gore’s emotions already were running high long before he took the mound this afternoon at Wrigley Field.
Gore is close friends with CJ Abrams, the fellow first-round picks of the Padres forever joined at the hip for their inclusion in the August 2022 blockbuster that sent Juan Soto and Josh Bell to San Diego. Now, here was the 25-year-old left-hander preparing to face the Cubs while his 23-year-old shortstop was preparing to head to West Palm Beach for the season’s final week as part of his disciplinary demotion by the club.
How would Gore channel all that emotion today? As well as the Nationals could possibly have hoped.
Carrying a no-hitter into the seventh inning, Gore thoroughly dominated Chicago’s lineup in one of the best performances of his career, leading the Nats to a 5-1 victory on a sun-splashed Saturday at the Friendly Confines.
The Cubs never came close to recording a clean hit off Gore until Patrick Wisdom launched a misplaced fastball over the left field bleachers with one out in the seventh. He walked three and hit another batter but otherwise was untouchable, striking out nine while throwing only 94 pitches over his seven frames of work.
It was the kind of performance that will help remind the Nats and the rest of the league Gore still has all the upside in the world to become a staff ace. He pitched like an All-Star in the first half, labored through most of July and August but is now finishing strong with a 1.82 ERA over his last six starts. With one more solid outing next weekend against the Phillies he could finish the season with an ERA under 4.00.
Gore was locked in right from the outset today, blocking out the Abrams news and retiring the side in the bottom of the first on 10 pitches while striking out three of the first four batters he faced. He would graze Michael Busch with a 3-2 curveball in the second but immediately erased that baserunner with a 4-6-3 double play. And by the time he walked off the mound at the end of the fourth, he had faced the minimum while throwing a scant 40 pitches.
The Cubs put two men on base to open the fifth, each via walk, for their most serious offensive threat of the day to that point. Gore calmly responded by inducing another double play out of Nico Hoerner, then blowing away Miguel Amaya on a 97 mph fastball to end the inning.
By the time Gore returned for the bottom of the sixth, he was the proud owner of a 5-0 lead, thanks to a crooked number supplied by his teammates in the top of the inning. The Nats already scored their first runs with some small ball (sacrifice flies by Ildemaro Vargas and Keibert Ruiz). Then they brought out the lumber for a big, game-changing blast.
Joey Gallo, getting the start in the outfield this weekend while Jacob Young deals with a sore left shoulder, greeted reliever Keegan Thompson’s 0-1 cutter with a mighty swing and sent the ball soaring into the right field bleachers for a three-run homer, his second of the series.
It may have come much too late to make much difference on the Nats’ fortunes, or his own, but Gallo can at least some solace knowing he’s contributed some much-needed power here in late September. And that today’s homer helped put his blooming young ace closer to a win.
Gore carried his no-hit bid through the sixth, striking out two more batters and pitching around another walk (his third of the game). He got the first out of the seventh on a grounder to short, though Nasim Nuñez’s throw barely beat a hustling Cody Bellinger down the line.
And then it all came to an end with one swing by Wisdom. Seeing a first-pitch fastball over the heart of the plate, the Cubs designated hitter mashed it 421 feet to left field, clearing the bleachers onto Waveland Avenue as the crowd of 38,819 roared. Gore turned back to the plate, put his hands on his hips for a moment and then got back to work.
He retired the next two batters, returned to the dugout having thrown seven innings of one-hit ball with nine strikeouts on 94 pitches, and could take the rest of the afternoon off to process the various emotions he had experienced on an atypical Saturday at the ballpark.