With few spring innings, Nats bullpen couldn't follow Gore's lead in Opening Day loss

MacKenzie Gore set the tone for the Nationals from the get-go on Thursday. He started the 2025 regular season by striking out Trea Turner on a perfectly placed low-and-inside 96 mph fastball.

Little did we know at the time that would be the first of an Opening Day franchise-record 13 strikeouts he would record over his six brilliant innings. Making his first Opening Day start, the 26-year-old left-hander shut out a tough Phillies lineup while holding it to just one hit with no walks.

Complete domination.

But once Gore departed the game with 93 pitches after the sixth, the Nats bullpen could not follow their starter’s lead.

Handed a 1-0 lead in the seventh, a group of five Nats relievers gave up all seven of the Phillies’ runs over the next four frames in the eventual 7-3 extra-inning loss.

“Some missed locations on fastballs, they paid the price,” manager Davey Martinez said of his relief corps. “Those guys can hit. We knew that coming in. We got to make pitches in certain situations.”

Martinez’s first difficult decision of the new season came in the top of that seventh inning. With Bryce Harper looming on deck, the skipper turned to right-hander Lucas Sims, an offseason addition who is looking to recapture a previous form, instead of left-hander Jose A. Ferrer.

Sims was able to get Turner to fly out to center field for the first out. But the left-handed slugging Harper crushed an inside 96 mph fastball 415 feet to center field to tie the game at 1-1.

“We like Sims on Turner,” Martinez said of his decision. “And like I said, those guys come up and miss location. I know he was trying to go down and away. He yanked a fastball and that was it.”

Sims struck out Alec Bohm to complete the three-batter minimum requirement and allow Martinez to bring in Ferrer to face the Phillies’ next lefty slugger Kyle Schwaber. But like Sims did against Harper, the young southpaw left his first pitch over the plate for the Philadelphia designated hitter to hit for a go-ahead home run.

“I was just thinking of attacking the zone when I got in there,” said Ferrer, via interpreter Kenny Diaz. “Obviously, he caught me a little by surprise. But my mentality and my thought process there was to attack him and get the ball over for a strike.”

“Ferrer did the same thing to Schwarber,” Martinez said. “He was trying to go down and away. He threw a fastball middle-in. So those guys like that, you can't miss location.”

Ferrer came back for the eighth to face the bottom of the Phillies lineup and gave up another run on a double, single and wild pitch. He then walked Turner with two outs but got Harper to fly out to center to end the inning after 29 pitches, leaving him with 34 over his 1 ⅓ innings.

“It's early, so these guys all got to get in there. We got to find spots to put them in,” Martinez said. “Like I said, even though they gave up some runs today, I did see some good things and some big outs. … I think Ferrer came in and got some big outs. The big thing with that was just the wild pitch. But other than that, he got some big outs for us.”

After the Nats rallied to tie the game 3-3 in the bottom of the eighth, closer Kyle Finnegan navigated a rocky top of the ninth to keep the game tied despite back-to-back two-out walks.

“Because I'm so positive, I'm gonna look at that he got out of the inning,” Martinez said of Finnegan’s outing with a laugh. “But he knows. He was frustrated about walking those guys. But I told him, ‘Hey, way to work out of it. It's a big moment. You got out of the inning.’”

Then it all fell apart in the 10th, with Colin Poche issuing two walks and a two-run double and Eduardo Salazar giving up a two-run triple and a walk, all with two outs.

In all, the Nationals used five relievers after Gore’s stellar start. And all five struggled at times, leading to a question of whether or not they pitched enough to get ready for the season in spring training.

Sims only pitched 5 ⅔ innings in Grapefruit League play. Ferrer pitched 8 ⅓ innings, Finnegan (who didn’t sign and report until two weeks into camp) only pitched four and Poche only pitched 5 ⅔ frames. Salazar was actually among the handful of major league relievers who reached double-digit spring training innings, pitching 11 ⅓ frames.

And take this with a grain of salt because of spring training rules and with some starters appearing as relievers, but the Nats were in the bottom third of the majors in innings pitched by relievers during spring training.

“I saw some really good things,” Martinez said when asked about his relievers’ lack of spring innings. “I mean, you look at Poche coming on to get some big outs. He blew up Turner's bat, which is hard to do. Turner's pretty quick in there, you know? Like I said, another one, he's trying to go in and up on Bohm, and he just threw the ball out over the plate.”

For the relievers themselves, is pitching in big spots on Opening Day a challenge when you can't simulate that moment in spring?

“In spring training, it's a little more controlled, as obviously you can imagine,” Ferrer said. “Coming here, it's a little faster, the game's a little quicker, and you might not necessarily always have the time to warm up and get ready and loose, as you would in spring training.”

But even with the first bullpen meltdown of the year coming in the first game, Martinez remains confident his relievers are ready for big spots early in the season.

“It's the first day,” Martinez said. “Like I said, they got butterflies. They're a little bit amped up. So we'll come back Saturday and do it again Saturday. What I do love is I saw some really good things.

“Once we get through this first day or two and they settle in, things will be different.”