Costly error leads to five-run rally, dooms Corbin and Nats (updated)

DENVER – You can’t assume the double play. It’s a time-honored baseball fact, meant mostly as guidance for official scoring but having worked its way into the sport’s lexicon.

So under that longstanding principle, Patrick Corbin was responsible for three of the five runs he surrendered tonight during the Nationals’ 5-2 loss to the Rockies.

If we’re using common sense, of course, we’d point out Corbin wouldn’t have been charged with any runs if Alcides Escobar hadn’t booted what sure looked like a 6-4-3 double play off the bat in the bottom of the fourth.

If Escobar makes that play, the inning is over with nary a run crossing the plate. But because he didn’t, a chain of events was set into motion that culminated with five Colorado runners scoring. Those would prove to be the only five runs the Nats would allow on this cold, rainy night. But they were enough to produce a loss, an odd one at that, given the fact their starter actually tossed the team’s first complete game of the season.

"We’ve got to catch the ball. We’ve got to catch the ball," an animated Davey Martinez said afterward. "And we didn’t do that today. It’s upsetting because of what Patrick did. ... The story today should be about Patrick. For me, he’s back. If he continues to do that, he’s going to help us win a lot of games. He was lights out today.”

Yes, he was. Corbin actually went the distance, delivering the Nationals' first complete game since Max Scherzer on May 2, 2021. Scherzer, of course, tossed nine innings that afternoon against the Marlins before racing to the hospital in time for the birth of his son. Corbin only pitched eight innings tonight, but it counts as an official complete game, because the home team never needed to bat in the bottom of the ninth.

"Without a win, though, it's kind of tough," the lefty said. "But (I) kind of take away some positives."

Suffice it to say, this was a weird ballgame, one that began 25 minutes late due to rain and then was completed in a scant 2 hours, 18 minutes before another round of rain was forecast to descend upon the area.

The first complete game of the Nationals’ season was still a loss, with Corbin tossing eight innings on an economical 94 pitches but done in by that one disastrous bottom of the fourth in which the Rockies scored all five of their runs.

Things went swimmingly for Corbin early on. He completed three scoreless innings on 42 pitches, overcoming Escobar’s first error of the night in the bottom of the second to retire José Iglesias and strand the bases loaded, then inducing a double-play grounder out of C.J. Cron to end the bottom of the third.

Corbin couldn’t pitch his way out of the fourth, though, not after another Escobar fielding gaffe. When the struggling shortstop booted a tailor-made double-play grounder with two on and one out, the inning continued with the bases now loaded.

"They are errors that I call dumb," Escobar said via interpreter Octavio Martinez, repeating a line he used last weekend after another rough night in the field in San Francisco. "I don't want to commit them. And I feel extremely bad, and I feel even worse since Corbin did a tremendous job for us out there and pitched a great game. Me, personally, I feel extremely bad about the errors that were committed."

The second Escobar error was made all the worse when Iglesias promptly ripped a double over Juan Soto’s head in right field to score two runs. Then Connor Joe ripped a sinking liner to center that sneaked past a diving Victor Robles and rolled to the wall for a two-run triple.

By the time the inning finally ended, the Rockies had scored five runs, three of them officially charged to Corbin, who was let down by his defense.

"These guys are out here working every day making those plays," Corbin said. "I know it's frustrating for them, too. They're not trying to do that. Like you said, it happens. As a pitcher, you've got to try to make some pitches and get out of it. Those two big hits were probably my two worst pitches of the day. So that's kind of what I look back at, and if I could execute that, maybe there's a different outcome." 

The way they’ve been hitting throughout this road trip, the Nationals had to feel like they were still in position to make up the five runs Colorado scored during the nightmare fourth. But aside from a couple clutch hits, they couldn’t solve left-hander Austin Gomber, who entered with the lowest career ERA of any starter in Coors Field history and lived up to the reputation.

The Nats got one run in the third when César Hernández delivered a two-out RBI single to score Riley Adams. And they got a leadoff homer from Lane Thomas (his first of the season) in the fifth. But that’s all they got in 6 2/3 innings against Gomber, who induced eight groundball outs, two of them double plays.

And when they couldn’t mount any late rallies against the Rockies bullpen, the Nationals were left to figure out how exactly they just lost this game. They got a complete game from their starter. It might well have been a shutout. If not for another costly mistake in the field.

"I truly believe in the course of a game, a close game, you've just got to focus and want the ball to be hit to you at all times," Martinez said. "It's one of those days. Look, Alcides, he's a Gold Glover. He makes those plays all the time. ... We'll come back tomorrow and try to win another series."