As Martinez fumes, Corbin dominates to beat Seattle (updated)

SEATTLE – On another day in which the Nationals were on the wrong end of a baserunning call by an umpire, another day in which Davey Martinez was ejected after arguing the aforementioned baserunning call, victory was still assured thanks to the dominant performance from a source that has been anything but dominant for the better part of 3 1/2 years now: Patrick Corbin.

As his manager and other teammates went ballistic over plate umpire Derek Thomas’ controversial sixth-inning call on Keibert Ruiz for running out of the baseline to avoid a tag at the plate, Corbin stayed above the fray and pitched his best game of the season, leading the Nats to a 4-1 win and a series victory over the Mariners.

"Look, you can say whatever you want about Patrick," Martinez said of his beleaguered veteran lefty. "What I know about Patrick is he's going to take the ball every five days. For me, that's awesome. And I love him for that."

Corbin tossed seven scoreless innings, scattering five singles without issuing a walk. He struck out nine, and needed only 102 pitches to complete those seven zero-filled frames to emerge with his fifth win of the year while lowering his ERA under 5.00 in the process.

"That's the end goal: Get as many wins as we can, and have everybody do their job," Corbin said. "Sometimes, it does get frustrating, but you've got to continue to grind and try to focus on the positives and learn from mistakes. I'm not going to get too high after this one, just look at some of the things I did well and try to improve and get ready for my next one."

It was a dominant performance on a day when his team needed it. On the heels of a wild, 11-inning victory late Tuesday night, the Nationals left Seattle with an interleague series win. This after taking two of three from the Padres in San Diego to begin their fourth and final West Coast trip of the season, all of them scheduled prior to the All-Star break. They went 12-13 in those games, 9-7 since early May.

"They're relentless," Martinez said. "They come out and played hard for 27 outs. I love the way they're playing. The energy's been great. We've got to continue to do that."

On the day the Nats left D.C. to begin this trip, Martinez was ejected for the first time in 2023, creating a new meme as he got down on his hands and knees to mimic how low Doug Eddings’ strike zone seemed to be. Six days later, the sixth-year manager earned his second ejection, this time for arguing a familiar call in an unfamiliar spot on the field.

With nobody out in the top of the sixth, Dominic Smith laced a ball down the right field line and into the corner. Ruiz, who was leading off first base at the time, was waved all the way around by third base coach Gary DiSarcina. Seattle’s relay got the ball to catcher Tom Murphy in plenty of time, leaving Ruiz to decide whether to just accept the tag or attempt to elude it.

Ruiz elected to try to elude it, and he actually did, sidestepping around to the right, then diving back to touch the plate from behind without ever getting tagged. Thomas, the plate umpire, immediately called Ruiz out for running too far out of the baseline.

"I just saw him, he caught the ball right in front of me," Ruiz said. "I tried to go to the right side. It was a tough play, but he called me out. That's all I can do."

Ruiz slammed his helmet to the ground and looked to the dugout for help. Martinez came storming out and argued in Thomas’ face, both before and after he was ejected.

"I’ve been in the major leagues for 38 years, I’ve never seen that call. I really haven’t," Martinez said. "He said he was outside of some kind of line. But the reason I went out there so heated up was I didn’t want Keibert to get thrown out of the game. He’s our backup catcher, if anything happens. But the initial call was he was outside the line. I’ve seen way worse than that, guys sliding, running around the side of home plate. But he saw something different.”

Rule 7.08(a)1 states that a runner is out when “he runs more than three feet away from his baseline to avoid being tagged, unless his action is to avoid interference with a fielder fielding a batted ball. A runner’s baseline is established when the tag attempt occurs and is a straight line from the runner to the base to which he is attempting to reach.”

“The play at the plate, our home-plate umpire, Derek Thomas, called the runner out for running out of the baseline when he was trying to score, avoiding the tag," crew chief Mark Carlson told a pool reporter. "It’s a rule ... that states if a runner runs more than three feet out of the line to avoid a tag, he’s in jeopardy of being called out.”

What other option did Ruiz have than try to avoid the tag?

"You can’t run him over," Martinez said. "Honestly, at this point, I don’t really know. I was shocked that he even made that call. But we’ll see what MLB decides to do. In the moment, I thought it was a bad call. Keibert thought it was a bad call."

"If the catcher is in possession of the ball, the runner still has the opportunity to touch home plate, and if there is a collision with the catcher having the ball, it’s legal," Carlson countered. "The rule is put in there to protect the catcher for when he doesn’t have the ball and he’s blocking the plate. But if the catcher has possession of the ball, then the runner still has the ability to collide with him."

Add this to the ever-growing list of baserunning calls that always seem to go against the Nats, no matter if they are the offensive or the defensive team on the play.

The call wound up not impacting the outcome of the day, because for the fifth consecutive day, the Nationals jumped out to an early lead thanks to top-of-the-first offense. And this time, they exploded for three runs on four consecutive hits.

Lane Thomas legged out a leadoff infield single to raise his batting average over .300. Luis García singled up the middle. Jeimer Candelario drove in Thomas with his 26th double of the season, second only to Freddie Freeman in the National League. And Ruiz completed the rally with a two-run single to center off Logan Gilbert, giving the Nats a 3-0 lead before ever making an out.

"I feel like I'm seeing the ball better than a couple days before," said Ruiz, who also homered Tuesday night. "I hope I continue to do the job for the team."

The pitching staff hasn’t always been so good at making those early leads hold up, but on this occasion Corbin was very much up to the challenge. The left-hander cruised through a quick bottom of the first on 15 pitches, striking out a pair. He struck out two more during a scoreless second, and then retired eight batters in a row, getting through the fourth on a scant 53 pitches.

Given the way he needed to use their bullpen during Tuesday night’s wild, 11-inning win, Martinez entered the day acknowledging he likely would need to push Corbin to give him length in the series finale, regardless of his effectiveness. Turns out the veteran starter made it easy, providing both length and effectiveness like he rarely has in recent seasons.

"Just a good job of using both sides of the plate," Corbin said. "Good fastball command. Good slider, I had a really good feel for that today and got a lot of swings and misses on it. Defense played great. I was just in a really good rhythm with (catcher Riley Adams). These ones are fun."

Bench coach Tim Bogar, filling in for Martinez, let Corbin stay out there through the seventh, once his pitch count exceeded 100. He then summoned rookie Amos Willingham to pitch the eighth, the 2019 17th round pick recording three outs in his major league debut after surrendering a line drive homer to José Caballero to begin the inning.

Hunter Harvey then pitched the ninth to finish off another West Coast series win for an exhausted – and, too often, exasperated – Nationals club.

"Relentless," Martinez said. "They're playing together. They've got that one heartbeat."