Rare blast off Doolittle spoils Kieboom's debut (updated)

With Max Scherzer dealing and notching his 2,500th career strikeout and Carter Kieboom providing the highlight home run in his major league debut, the Nationals should have had all kinds of reason to celebrate tonight.

Even though their bullpen had surrendered another eighth-inning run in agonizing fashion, they still had Sean Doolittle on the mound in the ninth inning of a tie game. How could that scenario possibly turn sour?

Welcome to 2019, folks, because it somehow did.

Hunter Renfroe's surprise home run off Doolittle in the top of the ninth stunned a Nationals Park crowd that had been ecstatic a few minutes earlier after Kieboom homered. And though the kid got another golden opportunity with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the inning, he struck out on a splitter from Kirby Yates and the Nationals were left to stew over a 4-3 loss to the Padres that felt like as much of a gut punch as any of the 13 other losses they've now suffered in 24 games to begin this already frustrating season.

"On a night where Max gets a milestone - really, really cool milestone - and Carter has such a special moment in his debut, for it to get spoiled like that, I mean, that's tough," Doolittle said. "That's tough."

That's tough, but that's also Nationals baseball so far this year. Even when things seem to be going right, a little thing here or there tends to ruin the party.

Consider everything that happened in the final two innings of this game, a wild roller coaster of emotions.

The Nationals were feeling demoralized after giving up the go-ahead run in the top of the eighth via a string of aggravating moments: a walk and a single issued by Kyle Barraclough, a botched double play attempt and a pitch off the catcher's mitt from Wander Suero.

"That one's going to hurt me," said Yan Gomes, who was charged with a passed ball on the play. "I take a lot of pride back there. I can't let that happen. That's pretty unacceptable."

But then moments later, Kieboom stepped to the plate for the third time in his nascent career and gave the crowd of 27,193 (especially his parents) reason to get excited again. He sent Craig Stammen's slider deep to center field and over the fence for the game-tying homer, earning a curtain call and a lifetime memory he and his family will never forget.

"I'm not sure I've ever even dreamed that, but that was unbelievable," the 21-year-old shortstop said. "That's like the cherry on top of anybody's call-up moment. That was real special. I really appreciate the fans for doing that."

The vibe, though, immediately went sour in the top of the ninth when Doolittle did the impossible: He surrendered a homer. His 1-2 changeup was off the plate, and Renfroe was off-balance and only had one hand on the bat when he made contact. But the ball somehow carried to left-center and cleared the wall, the first homer Doolittle had given up since June 19, 2018.

"Shocked," the closer said. "No offense to (Renfroe). He did an incredible job of being able to get to that pitch and drive it out of the ballpark. ... I thought it executed it well, and when you get a guy that off-balance, you don't expect the guy to be able to do that kind of damage. And he barreled it up. But seeing how far out in front he was, at contact I thought it was going to be a flyout. And then I turned around and it just kept going. So ... good process, bad result."

Not everyone agreed with the process, though, namely the decision by Doolittle and Gomes to go with his lesser-used changeup instead of his bread-and-butter high fastball.

"I didn't understand that," manager Davey Martinez said. "His fastball was really crisp today. He was throwing 96 (mph). For me, it's about keeping things simple, knowing who you are. When he's throwing 96, for me, it's just: Throw your fastball."

Gomes had mixed feelings about the pitch selection.

"Afterwards you think about it like: Man, that was stupid," the catcher said. "But then you go look at the pitch, and it was kind of on the other side of the batter's box. That's what we wanted. We wanted to just let him see something slower, get him to reach out there and go way outside. That's a big boy. He put a good swing on it. And now we're kind of kicking ourselves for throwing it."

And even after all that, the Nationals still had a golden opportunity to make up for it when they loaded the bases with in the bottom of the ninth. Up stepped Kieboom as the crowd roared with anticipation. The rookie fell behind in the count 0-2 against Yates, but battled back to a 2-2 count before striking out on a splitter to end the game.

"Talk about a whirlwind of emotions that was," he said.

Kieboom got a nice ovation when he stepped to the plate for his first career at-bat in the bottom of the third. He struck out looking, but his mere presence was noteworthy because he joined Juan Soto and Victor Robles as the first trio 21 or younger to be in the same lineup since the Marlins suited up Mark Kotsay, Edgar Renteria and Luis Castillo on July 27, 1997. (That team, of course, wound up winning the World Series.)

Throw in Padres rookie sensation Fernando Tatis Jr., and baseball's best and brightest next generation of stars was on full display tonight.

At least until Scherzer toed the rubber and schooled the kids with a pitching clinic.

On the heels of a ragged start in Miami in which he allowed seven runs and 11 hits in 5 1/3 innings, Scherzer turned it all around tonight. He retired the side on 14 pitches in the first, did the same on 11 pitches in the second, did it again on 12 pitches in the third and then finished off a perfect fourth with back-to-back strikeouts of Wil Myers and Manny Machado in which he dialed up his fastball to 98 mph.

And when he got Manuel Margot to whiff at a slider leading off the top of the sixth, Scherzer reached the latest in his growing list of career milestones: 2,500 strikeouts. He's the 35th pitcher in major league history to do it, but only Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan did it in fewer starts.

"It's really cool," he said. "It's stuff that you'll think about in the offseason a little bit more than you do now. Right now, you're just caught up in living it day by day, going through the season. But it's a cool milestone to reach."

Scherzer may have been perfect into the fifth inning tonight, but he wasn't perfect after he left an 0-2 fastball over the plate to Eric Hosmer, who launched it into the right-center field bleachers. It was the fourth home run surrendered by the Nationals on an 0-2 pitch this season, the 19th in the last two seasons (most in baseball).

The Nationals still held a 2-1 lead to that point, thanks to a big blast from their catcher. Gomes' moonshot into the wind in left field but just over the fence in the bottom of the fourth put the home team on the board. Gomes would make a difference in the field a few innings later.

Though Scherzer gave up the tying run in the top of the seventh via Myers' double and Machado's single to center, he emerged without surrendering anything else thanks to two heads-up defensive plays. Brian Dozier appeared to purposely let Franmil Reyes' popup to second fall to the ground, allowing him to easily throw Machado out at second and leave the slower Reyes on base.

That proved huge two batters later when, with runners on the corners and the trailing one attempting to steal second, Gomes fired back to third base and caught Reyes (who was only there because of Dozier's savvy play earlier).

"It's kind of a designed play to just pump-fake it, see what happens," Gomes said. "And then I saw him kind of take a step towards me, and I just threw it."

It was one of several legitimately upbeat moments for the Nationals in a game that had a good number of them. And it still wasn't enough to emerge victorious.

Welcome to 2019 Washington Nationals baseball.

"I want the guys to keep their heads up and keep playing hard," Martinez said. "They're playing hard. We'll win games, we will. They're playing really hard. That's all I can say."