Soroka departs with injury, takes loss in Nats debut (updated)

TORONTO – They didn’t make their season-opening rotation plans with this in mind, but the fact Michael Soroka’s debut with the Nationals came in his home country was a happy byproduct, something everyone had looked forward to for weeks.

"He's from here. He gets to pitch his first game for the Nats here in Toronto. It's awesome," manager Davey Martinez said of the Canadian right-hander (who is from Calgary). "Long time coming. He's worked hard this whole spring to get himself ready. He hasn't started in a while, but he's excited and we're excited to see him go out there and compete."

That Soroka’s homecoming wound end abruptly in the bottom of the sixth, the 27-year-old waking off the mound alongside a trainer clenching his fist after an errant pitch, turned the whole affair sour.

The Nationals lost to the Blue Jays, 5-2, in their first road game of the season. They also feared they lost their biggest offseason pitching acquisition, putting added strain on a rotation that pitched extremely well over the weekend but is suddenly razor-thin in the depth department. By night's end, there was a more encouraging outlook, with Soroka merely dealing with a biceps cramp and not something more significant.

"I think we'll be OK," he said. "It's just one those things you don't want to feel, and not something that's worth (pitching) through, especially at that point in the game and at this point in the season."

There were other factors involved in the outcome of tonight’s game, namely a lack of offense. The Nats were stymied at the plate by Bowden Francis and the Toronto bullpen, aside from a brief home run barrage by CJ Abrams and James Wood. The rest of the lineup managed only three more hits to go along with three walks. And an already maligned bullpen endured through another shaky night.

The narrative of this game changed multiple times during the course of the sixth inning alone. When the frame began, Francis was embarking on his latest no-hit bid. Within minutes, Abrams and Wood broke up the no-no with back-to-back homers, each previously slumping hitter now feeling good about himself while cutting the Nationals’ deficit in half. But the good vibes lasted only a few minutes because of what happened to Soroka when he retook the mound.

Having already allowed four runs over five innings in his Nats debut, Soroka was sent back for the bottom of the sixth, his pitch count at 80. He would throw only three more pitches, the last of them a slider he spiked into the plate. The right-hander immediately looked toward the dugout, then started walking toward the plate, clenching his fist along the way.

"I made sure to get a breaking ball down, and kind of overextended a little bit," he explained. "My bicep just kind of tightened up."

Martinez and director of athletic training Paul Lessard hurried out to check on Soroka, and the conversation didn’t take long. Soroka and Lessard departed side-by-side as Martinez signaled to the bullpen.

"The minute you see a pitcher standing on the mound like that, and you have to go out, you always try to be positive. But you always assume the worst, especially when you're talking about their arms."

The Nationals have high hopes this season for Soroka, as evidenced by the $9 million salary they gave him coming off an 0-10 season with the White Sox in which he was bumped to the bullpen. They gave him a guaranteed spot in their rotation, banking on peripheral numbers that suggested he looked far more like the Rookie of the Year runner-up from 2019 than the oft-injured right-hander of the last five years.

The Nationals also had high hopes for their pitching depth just a few weeks ago, with three strong candidates for the No. 5 starter’s job and multiple prospects also waiting in the wings in case they were needed. Since then, DJ Herz has landed on the 60-day injured list with a sprained elbow ligament, Shinnosuke Ogasawara has struggled to get major leaguers out and Brad Lord has been turned into a big league reliever.

If they need to replace Soroka, the Nats might have to send Lord to Triple-A Rochester to get stretched out first, leaving them with few appealing options in the short term. But the initial hope is that it won't come to that.

"Obviously, we want to be able to throw a good bullpen (in two days) and make sure it's in the rear-view mirror," he said. "That'll be really the checkpoint. We have a lot of things we can do to make sure I do bounce back. And I think we'll be able to do that."

Before the Soroka injury, it was the Blue Jays’ starter who commanded the most attention tonight.

Only four members of the Nationals roster had ever faced Francis before tonight, and only one (Nathaniel Lowe) had taken more than two at-bats against the right-hander. Whether it was unfamiliarity or something else, the Nats looked flummoxed from the get-go tonight.

Through four innings, only two batters managed to hit the ball out of the infield. And the only two to reach base did so via walk: Wood in the first, Jacob Young in the third. Wood made it all the way to third base, Young never advanced anywhere.

Dylan Crews finally made solid contact, his first of the season, when he drove a high fastball deep to center, forcing Nathan Lukes to the base of the wall before he made the catch. This represented progress for Crews, who snapped a streak of eight consecutive strikeouts dating back to Saturday. Nevertheless, both the rookie and his team remained hitless.

"(Francis) just mixed up his pitches well early on," Martinez said. "I think we got away from staying on that fastball. Once we got ready for the fastball ... we started getting better swings on him."

This was nothing new for Francis. The 28-year-old twice took no-hit bids into the ninth inning last season. And in four of his final eight starts, he finished with only one hit allowed over seven or more innings, proof tonight’s performance was no fluke.

The Nationals didn’t wait until the ninth to thwart history this time. They finally got to Francis in the top of the sixth. With authority.

Abrams absolutely destroyed a 1-1 changeup from Francis and sent a no-doubt homer into the right field stands. The blast left his bat at 112.7 mph, the hardest-hit ball of his career.

"I don't want to think about (the no-hitter) at the plate," Abrams said. "I just wanted to get a good pitch to hit. The at-bats before, I kind of swung at his pitch. I was a little early on the ones I hit. So I wanted to go to left field, and I got a changeup, and I got to pull it."

The crowd of 20,137 barely had time to process Abrams’ homer before Wood duplicated the feat. The big lefty slugger took a fastball from Francis the other way, notching his first home run of the season in his traditional manner.

Those back-to-back blasts only trimmed the deficit to 4-2. The Nationals needed more offense, and they weren’t finding it against either Francis or the Blue Jays bullpen.

"He's got a good fastball, and he was just making good pitches," Wood said. "We just had to be more patient, and you just can't (miss) on the mistakes we were getting."