Gray gets zero run support for third straight start (updated)

Josiah Gray has unquestionably gotten off to a good start this season, especially once he overcame some early home run foibles in his first outing of the year. That’s important to the Nationals in the grand scheme, because improvement from the 25-year-old right-hander is high on their list of goals for 2023.

It would be nice, though, if the Nats could reward Gray for his efforts by getting him at least one win at some point. Or, you know, providing at least one run of support for him.

Alas, that isn’t happening at all, and the disturbing trend continued tonight during a frustrating, 1-0 loss to the Orioles in the opener of this year’s Battle of the Beltways on South Capitol Street.

Despite another strong start from Gray, the Nationals lineup was once again rendered helpless, shut out for the third time this season. Notably, all three shutouts have come during Gray’s last three starts.

"You go through some tough luck like this, when you do have good starters make some good pitches and pitch well, and it sucks," first baseman Dominic Smith said. "It sucks that we weren't able to push across a couple runs for him, especially with how well he's been pitching."

Gray lost 1-0 to the Rockies’ Kyle Freeland. He lost 2-0 to the Angels’ Shohei Ohtani. And he lost 1-0 tonight to the Orioles’ Dean Kremer, who surrendered four singles while allowing one batter to reach on hit-by-pitch and another to reach via error over 6 2/3 shutout innings before handing it over to his bullpen to finish the job.

The Nationals are now 5-12 overall, and five of their last seven losses have all come by one run, the other two by two runs.

"I know we're going to break through here soon," said Gray, now 0-4 despite a 3.74 ERA. "I'm just going out there thinking about the team and trying to put up zeroes as much as I can and giving us an opportunity to win ballgames."

Gray pitched well his previous two starts while displaying good command of the strike zone. Tonight, he found a way to pitch well despite some pretty obvious command issues, especially as the night progressed.

The right-hander got out of jams in the second and fifth innings, innings that each began with a leadoff double and later included a walk. He wasn’t quite as fortunate in the fourth, when he surrendered an RBI single to Austin Hays but was bailed out from another future damage when Keibert Ruiz snagged Stone Garrett’s wild throw from left field and nabbed Hays trying to advance to second.

Relying heavily on breaking balls instead of fastballs – 69 of his 98 total pitches were cutters, sliders or curveballs – Gray was effectively wild. His best pitch of the night might well have been a 3-2 cutter to strike out Cedric Mullins in the top of the third, further evidence of his growing confidence in that newly added pitch.

"It's been huge," he said of the cutter. "Today was the most I've thrown it yet. To see foul balls, a few swing-and-misses, some softer contact in pitcher counts and hitter counts, it boosts your confidence with the pitch."

With his command clearly fading, Gray was given an opportunity to re-take the mound for the top of the sixth, his pitch count at 89. Mason Thompson was already warming in the bullpen, so the leash was obviously going to be short. It turned out to be only one batter, with a 9-pitch walk of Anthony Santander drawing Davey Martinez from the dugout to take the ball from his starter.

"Towards the end there, he started getting the ball up a little bit," Martinez said. "The sixth inning, we were just going to go batter-by-batter with him, and see where he goes. He started getting the ball up a little bit. He had a long at-bat against Santander. I thought that was the right time to take him out."

Four starts in, Gray has shown real improvement from 2022. He served up back-to-back homers to the first two batters he faced way back on April 1, but only two more in 21 innings since. He owns a 3.74 ERA. But he does not own a win, because his teammates have supplied him with zero run support.

Flash back to the ninth inning of that April 1 game against the Braves, when Ruiz launched a ball into the third deck down the right field line at Nationals Park, the seat it struck having since been painted red to denote the feat. That’s still the only run the Nats have scored in a game started by Gray this season, and it came when they were down 7-0 in the bottom of the ninth, the right-hander having long since departed.

"He's been really good," Martinez said. "He understands that he's giving us an opportunity to win some ballgames, and he's keeping us right there. I told him: 'Hang in there. We'll score some runs for you.' But he's pitching really well."

Their best chance tonight came in the bottom of the third, but they turned it into a calamity of bad fundamental baseball. CJ Abrams drew a leadoff walk to set the stage, then got a huge jump on Kremer and had second base stolen with ease … except for the fact Victor Robles fouled off a bunt attempt on the pitch, sending Abrams back to first.

"Vic should've pulled back (the bunt attempt)," Martinez said. "And then he tried to bunt again, and we got to 3-2. At that moment, it was kind of more a free hit-and-run with CJ able to run right there."

Kremer would proceed to make two pickoff attempts later in the at-bat, which should’ve given Abrams free reign to get another huge jump. The young shortstop, though, couldn’t pull the trigger for some reason. No worries, because Baltimore third baseman Gunnar Henderson gift-wrapped a golden scoring opportunity to the Nationals when he threw wild to first on Robles’ grounder, putting runners on second and third with nobody out.

What happened? Three straight strikeouts from Lane Thomas, Smith and Joey Meneses, the first two in a particularly egregious manner, to kill the only rally the Nats came close to mounting tonight.

"You've just got to do what you can to try to get the job done," said Smith, who went 1-for-4 with two strikeouts. "We haven't been able to do it as often as we'd like. We've just got to keep working, keep battling and keep grinding, and the ball will bounce our way."