The good, and the bad, of Abrams' eventful day at the plate

CJ Abrams came up to bat four times during Tuesday’s game at Nationals Park, and he was legitimately pleased with both the process and the results of three of those plate appearances.

There was a third-inning double to right. There was a fifth-inning double to left. And there was a ninth-inning leadoff walk.

The common theme with those plate appearances? Abrams swung at pitches in the zone and took those outside the zone. He took two pitches off the plate and then doubled on a changeup right over the heart of the zone in the third. He took three straight pitches, two of them called balls, before driving a sinker at the knees the other way for a double in the fifth. And he took five straight pitches in the ninth, the first of them called a strike, the others all called balls.

“I was swinging more at my pitch today,” he said. “Swinging at good pitches I can handle. I was seeing in the zone, going fastball the other way, pulling the changeup and reacting.”

The ninth-inning walk, in particular, pleased Abrams’ manager.

“His last at-bat, beautiful,” Davey Martinez said. “He laid off some good pitches, got on base. That’s something we talk to him a lot about. When he gets the ball up in the zone and he hits fastballs, he’s really good. He had some good at-bats today.”

It was Abrams’ other at-bat, though, that still lingered with him at the end of the Nationals’ 8-4 loss to the Reds. The one in the bottom of the sixth. The one with the bases loaded and nobody out. The one that could’ve changed the entire complexion of the game.

With reliever Fernando Cruz laboring and the tying run now on base, Abrams should’ve been in the driver’s seat. But he immediately shifted momentum back to the pitcher when he whiffed at a first-pitch slider well below the strike zone. He then took a strike on the inside corner, leaving himself in a real bind down 0-2.

Abrams took a splitter in the dirt for an easy ball, but then he fouled off back-to-back pitches, only one of them in the strike zone. And then on the sixth and final pitch of the at-bat, he swung at and whiffed at another splitter below the knees, trudging back to the dugout following a frustrating strikeout.

“I’d say I probably let the nerves get to me a little bit,” the 22-year-old shortstop said. “Swung at some pitches I shouldn’t have. It happens. Couldn’t get the job done. Should’ve. Now onto the next.”

What can Abrams learn from a situation like that?

“Just step out, maybe breathe,” he said. “He’s got to come to me. Just get a better pitch to hit next time, for sure.”

Abrams was hardly alone in struggling with runners in scoring position during Tuesday’s loss. Derek Hill followed his strikeout with one of his own. Lane Thomas popped out down the left field line to end that rally with the bases still loaded.

It’s been a challenge for everyone to deliver in clutch situations, especially in a lineup that ranks last in the majors in home runs. If they aren’t going to score a bunch of runs with one swing of the bat, they had better provide quality at-bats when they have a chance to drive in one or two teammates with a single.

Abrams, and others, did a good job when batting without anyone on base Tuesday. They now have to figure out how to carry over the same approach to those clutch situations when a runner is 90 feet away at third base.

“It’s a different cat, because they all want to be so aggressive with guys on base,” Martinez said. “They all want to be the guy that drives in that run. But you can’t drive in runs when you’re chasing balls everywhere. You’ve got to get the ball in the zone. That’s something we’ve got to keep harping on, keep teaching.”