Gray impresses again, but Nats fall in extras (updated)

When they remember this game years from now, they might remember that the Nationals lost to the Marlins 4-3 in 10 innings. They will for sure remember what happened prior to that, when two 23-year-old right-handers dueled for the first time and showed why their respective clubs have such high hopes for both of them.

Josiah Gray and Edward Cabrera went head-to-head and perhaps appropriately emerged with a draw. Gray struck out seven but departed after six innings of two-run ball with the Nationals trailing. Cabrera, making his major league debut, carried a shutout into the seventh despite striking out only a pair, then crumbled in his final frame serving up back-to-back homers to Josh Bell and Yadiel Hernandez.

It all made for an electric pitching showdown between two of the National League East's brightest young arms, even if neither figured into the final decision.

"It's fun to see this next core of guys come up and watch them do what they're capable of doing," manager Davey Martinez said in his postgame Zoom session with reporters. "I see these two kids going at it for many, many years. I wish them both health throughout their careers because it'll be a lot of fun when you see Josiah against Cabrera, especially the next time around."

Gray was briefly in line to best Cabrera and earn his first win, until Andres Machado gave up the tying run in the bottom of the seventh on Magneuris Sierra's triple and Jesús Aguilar's RBI double.

The game remained tied through the ninth, leaving the Nationals to try to win in extra innings for the first time since June 9 at Tampa Bay, when Tanner Rainey earned his first career save and Brad Hand vultured a win. They had a chance to emerge victorious this time when Riley Adams singled to right, but Jesús Sánchez's throw to the plate beat a sliding Carter Kieboom by a healthy margin, spoiling that opportunity.

"I don't think it was a horrible send (by third base coach Bob Henley)," Martinez said. "I've got to go look at it. I was looking at the right fielder and then I turned to home. But I thought at that particular moment, we want to be aggressive and he thought he had a chance to score."

Kyle Finnegan then let the winning run score in the bottom of the 10th despite doing very little wrong himself. A sacrifice bunt moved the automatic runner to third base, then Martinez decided to intentionally walk two batters to load the bases and hope for a double play. Finnegan induced a sharp grounder out of Jorge Alfaro, but it was well-placed to the left of a drawn-in Alcides Escobar at shortstop, and that's how this one ended in defeat for the Nationals.

"We chose to pitch to Alfaro in that situation, try to hopefully get the ground ball and turn a double play. If he hits it soft, we just go home with it," Martinez said. "It just didn't work out. He hit it where we weren't."

But the compelling story of this game involved the starters, not the relievers. And they lived up to the advance billing.

Cabrera's arsenal - a 98 mph fastball, 84 mph slider and changeup that somehow topped out at 94 mph - was impressive, no doubt. But his success didn't come as you might assume it would come from a pitcher with that kind of stuff.

The Nationals swung and missed at only two pitches thrown by the young right-hander through the first six innings. And they made solid contact a number of times, on three occasions producing an exit velocity of 100 mph or greater. Lane Thomas drove a ball 399 feet to left-center in the third inning, a drive that would've cleared the wall in most major league parks but in Miami was caught by Bryan De La Cruz.

"Carter had some good swings, I did, Lane did," Bell said. "It was just a matter of time, hoping we wouldn't run out of time there."

Hard contact or not, you couldn't argue with Cabrera's highly effective results to that point. Or his remarkable efficiency. He completed four of his first six innings on fewer than 10 pitches, helped in part by three double-play grounders from a lineup that just couldn't deliver enough to push a run across.

That only reduced Gray's margin for error, which was razor-thin on this night. The Nationals rookie wasn't quite as sharp as in his previous four starts and issued three walks for the first time (though one was intentional) but he was done in by a couple of mistakes, which is all it took tonight.

Gray's second-inning walk of Brian Anderson came back to haunt him when Alfaro drove him in on a two-out single to left. And four innings later, Anderson drove himself in with a leadoff homer to center on a fastball that was up in the zone, the eighth solo homer Gray has surrendered in five starts.

"As I was going throughout the outing, I was just saying: Keep the team in the ballgame as much as I could," he said. "Crazier things have happened, where we could come back and get three runs. Obviously, it wasn't my best game. But it's definitely encouraging to go out there and not have your best stuff, but also keep your team in position to win a ballgame. At the end of the day, that's what it's about."

Gray did still have moments of dominance, especially when he turned to his best breaking ball. He threw 34 curveballs total on the night. The Marlins swung at 17 of them. And they whiffed at 13 of those.

All told, he induced 18 swings and misses during his six innings of two-run ball, another quality start but another one he departed without being eligible for the win.

"I keep telling JoJo: Show something a little better next time," Bell said with a laugh. "It's tough not getting runs for him early. I'd really like to see him get going and be able to finish games out for us. But next time through, hopefully we can do that for him."

They nearly did do it tonight, thanks to a big rally in the seventh that included a big blast by Bell.

It began with a walk by Escobar, who stayed patient during an eight-pitch plate appearances to set the stage. And two batters later, Bell delivered once again in what should be the toughest spot for any hitter: an 0-2 count.

It hasn't been that way for Bell, though, and he proved it again tonight when he blasted Cabrera's 92 mph changeup to straightaway center field for the game-tying homer. With that, the big slugger improved to an impressive 7-for-23 with two doubles and two homers on an 0-2 count this season, his .956 OPS tops in the majors.

"I feel like, at least as of late, my chase rate hasn't been too terrible, especially with 0-2," he said. "So I feel like if you're coming in the zone, making a mistake in that sequence, I feel like I'm also seeing pitches, too. So maybe the third pitch through, I'm able to sync something up."

And then moments later, Hernandez did it himself, driving a 94 mph changeup that might've looked to him more like a hittable fastball the other way for the go-ahead homer that spoiled Cabrera's otherwise impressive debut.

If only the Nationals had been able to make that back-to-back sequence hold up and ensure their rookie right-hander would get the win over his counterpart on this night.