Tired Nats storm back to stun Bucs and sweep doubleheader (updated)

PITTSBURGH – It’s hard to sweep a doubleheader. It’s even harder when your Game 2 starter can’t get out of the fourth inning, you have to ask four relievers who already pitched in Game 1 to come back and do it again five hours later and you have to ask a lineup loaded with inexperienced hitters to mount a ninth-inning rally against Aroldis Chapman.

How remarkable, then, was the Nationals’ 8-6 win over the Pirates tonight? Under the circumstances, perhaps their most remarkable win of the year.

Having already won this afternoon’s opener, the Nats pulled out all the stops to win the nightcap. Davey Martinez had four of his relievers (Derek Law, Jacob Barnes, Robert Garcia, Kyle Finnegan) pitch both ends of the doubleheader. And after watching Barnes and Garcia combine to give up the two runs that put Pittsburgh on top in the bottom of the eighth, Martinez watched his team rally to score four runs off Chapman in the top of the ninth, with Ildemaro Vargas coming off the bench to deliver the biggest hit of them all.

"They didn't give up," Martinez said. "I talk about these guys every day, about them playing hard to the last out. And they did it again today."

Vargas’ two-out, two-run double to right on a 3-2, 99-mph fastball from Chapman left the PNC Park crowd of 18,937 stunned and the visitors’ dugout bursting with joy. The veteran utility man, who was dressed in full uniform at 11 a.m. but never appeared in a game until 9:40 p.m., smiled wide as he coasted into second base after right fielder Connor Joe came up just short of a diving attempt that would have ended the game.

"I didn't play the first game, or the second game. But I stayed prepared, getting ready between innings," Vargas said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "Every inning, I would go out there to do something and stay ready. I knew they had several lefties in the bullpen, so the opportunity might come where I was going to get called upon. I was, and luckily I was able to do the job."

Both James Wood (who drove in the inning’s first run) and Andrés Chaparro (who homered and drove in another run earlier in the game) scored on Vargas’ hit. And then Vargas scored himself moments later on Keibert Ruiz’s double down the left field line to complete the stunning, four-run rally.

Finnegan then bounced back from a shaky, 23-pitch save in the opener to close out his second game of the day and finish off a remarkable afternoon and evening for the Nationals, especially their bullpen, which was asked to work overtime and then some.

"We take pride in that," said Law, who leads all National League relievers with 79 innings pitched. "We take pride in our appearances and innings, stuff like that, which is really cool to see. For me to be able to go and do that, or for Finny to be able to go out and get two saves like that in one day, it's just a testament to how we've been working all season."

All this came after an abbreviated start from Mitchell Parker, who faced an uphill challenge from the get-go. He walked the first batter he faced, then allowed a double and eventually a two-run single to Jared Triolo, failing to get out of the first inning unscathed. All told, it required 29 pitches to complete that opening frame, all but guaranteeing an abbreviated evening for the lefty.

Parker’s troubles continued in the second, during which he surrendered two more doubles, including one by No. 9 batter Alika Williams that extended the Pirates’ lead to 3-0. He escaped a bases-loaded jam in the third without suffering any damage, but by then his pitch count was all the way up to 70, so the bullpen was on high alert by the time he returned to the mound for the fourth.

Parker would face only two more batters before his night was over. He issued his fourth walk of the game to open the inning, then served up a double into the left field corner to Isiah Kiner-Falefa that should have scored a run but remarkably didn’t, thanks to a picture-perfect relay from Wood to CJ Abrams to Drew Millas to nail a stunned Williams at the plate.

Defensive gem or not, Parker would not go any further in this one. Martinez pulled his starter after 3 1/3 innings that included six hits, four walks, five strikeouts and 78 pitches.

"It makes it easier to swallow that we got the win," Parker said. "It sucks. That's obviously not how we wanted the game to start, especially on a doubleheader. That's not what the game plan was."

Thus did the rookie’s rocky second half continue. He’s had several strong outings sprinkled into the mix, but all told he now sports a 5.97 ERA over his last 12 starts, leaving himself with a 4.43 mark for the season, with at most four more appearances to go.

Despite Parker’s struggles tonight, the Nationals were still very much in this game. They hung around despite striking out seven times in their first three offensive innings against Mitch Keller, who caught them looking at strike three on five occasions.

The Nats scratched out a couple of runs off Keller, though. They got a rare, opposite-field RBI single from Chaparro in the third. Then they got another run in the fourth when slow-footed Ruiz managed to beat a strong throw to the plate by Joe on a fly ball to medium-deep right-center, narrowly sliding in ahead of the tag.

And once Keller departed following the sixth, the Nationals went to work against the Pittsburgh bullpen. And in the middle of it all was Chaparro, who got the chance to face left-hander Ryan Borucki and very much made the most of it.

Licking his chops at a 2-2 sinker right over the plate, the rookie first baseman drove it 426 feet to left field, into the second deck. Borucki fell to his knees and threw his hands up in disbelief as Chaparro rounded the bases for the fourth time in 22 big league games, this one having tied the game.

Turns out that was merely the precursor to a wild finish at the end of a long, but highly successful day and night of baseball.

"They don't feel like they're ever out of a game," Martinez said. "They feel like if they keep grinding, good things will happen. Today, they grinded. They grinded hard today. After winning the first game, and playing the way we did the second game, hopefully they carry that over tomorrow."