Young and old lead Nationals to third straight win (updated)

The Nationals' rebuild will be a success if they can get more than a few of the young players who now make up the majority of their roster to develop into legitimate contributors.

It'll be an even bigger and faster success if they can also get their few remaining veterans to return to the form they displayed while winning the World Series two years ago.

So consider tonight's 4-1 victory over the Brewers a best-case-scenario kind of night. They not only got contributions from a host of newcomers, they also got a big-time performance from a veteran who had looked lost on the mound for weeks: Patrick Corbin.

With 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball in Milwaukee, Corbin authored his best start in two months. And with clutch hits from Lane Thomas and Riley Adams, plus quality relief from Mason Thompson, Andres Machado and Kyle Finnegan, a Nationals club that had been in a tailspin since the trade deadline has now won three in a row, all against contenders.

"Everything's moving in the right direction," Thomas said in a postgame Zoom session with reporters. "Obviously, they got rid of some guys who could play pretty well, but I think you've got a lot of young guys who can play and have a plus side. I think that's good for everybody. It boosts our confidence, because we can go out and definitely win some games this next month and a half."

The Nats swept the Blue Jays earlier this week with offensive might. Tonight, they beat the National League Central-leading Brewers with dominant pitching, headlined by Corbin.

Owner of a 6.04 ERA - worst among all qualifying major league starters - when the day began, Corbin seemed lost. He had allowed at least four runs in each of his previous six outings, many of them defined by late-inning meltdowns.

Manager Davey Martinez, though, saw positives amid the carnage. Most notably, that Corbin's fastball velocity was up. He told the lefty, who for years has relied on his wipeout slider more than any other pitch, to trust his heater more.

"We talked about this before with him: His fastball has been really good," Martinez said. "It's live. It's moving. He can go in and out. And today, you saw what he can do when he utilizes it a lot."

Indeed, the change in strategies worked beautifully tonight. Corbin allowed only three of the 22 Brewers batters he faced to reach base, none via walk. He struck out seven. And he did it by throwing his fastball 71 percent of the time.

"I'm confident in all my pitches, if I locate it," the lefty said. "But tonight, I felt like it was coming out pretty easy. ... For me, getting ahead of guys, locating my fastball, attacking them and playing my slider off it has been my game. And I thought that was something tonight we did really well. That's what's so frustrating, because I've been feeling pretty good. Tonight, it was great to see the results."

Corbin carried a shutout into the seventh, but that's when he finally began to fade. He got Eduardo Escobar to fly out to deep center, but it came at the end of an 11-pitch at-bat that saw one drive hook just foul down the left field line. And when Avisaíl García hammered the next pitch to right-center for a solo homer, Martinez decided not to take any more chances and pulled his starter.

"His stuff was good. His stuff was electric," Martinez said. "He got into trouble when he got the ball up a little bit, but not horribly bad. He gave up the homer, and I thought that was good enough."

Not that the Nationals had much success at the plate themselves against Brewers starter Brett Anderson. After totaling 20 runs during their two-game sweep of the Blue Jays, they were held scoreless the first time through the order tonight before finally breaking through in the fourth.

Singles by Alcides Escobar (via bunt) and Josh Bell set the table. Thomas then cleaned up with a two-out, two-run triple into the right field corner for his first RBIs since his acquisition from the Cardinals for Jon Lester.

"It's a little confidence-booster, coming in and getting a couple hits the first time I played," said Thomas, who was just 5-for-48 with the Cardinals this season. "And I think it's always good just playing in front of some new faces and new people that haven't seen me play that much. It gives you a little motivation to impress them and gain some more opportunity."

Two innings later, another newly acquired hitter delivered another clutch hit. With two on and two out in the sixth after Anderson walked a pair, Adams took a 1-2 fastball from former Nats reliever Hunter Strickland and found a hole on the left side of the infield. Bob Henley aggressively waved Juan Soto around third, and it paid off when Soto slid in just ahead of Manny Piña's tag at the plate to extend the lead to 3-0.

The solo homer off Corbin cut the lead to 3-1, but the reworked Nationals bullpen locked things down after that. Thompson finished the seventh. Machado got three outs on three pitches in the eighth, the first of which was a double play grounder from former MVP Christian Yelich. And after Bell drew a bases-loaded walk to pad the lead to three runs again, Finnegan finished the ninth for his fourth save in five attempts since taking over as closer.

"I can honestly see these guys getting some confidence, and attacking the strike zone," Martinez said. "That's the biggest thing. ... I like what I'm seeing."