Nats beat rain and Cardinals to avoid another sweep (updated)

The situation surrounding this afternoon’s finale between the Nationals and Cardinals was a tricky one.

Rain was in the forecast all day today in the District of Columbia, with only a brief window right around the 4:05 p.m. scheduled start time. The Nationals have a makeup game against the Diamondbacks scheduled for 1 p.m. tomorrow (with more rain in the forecast), with both teams traveling back to the West Coast afterward. And the Cardinals have a transatlantic flight out of D.C. tonight for their two-game weekend series against the Cubs in London.

All of that made for a lot of uncertainty on South Capitol Street.

But as if both teams understood the assignment of playing fast, the Nats and Cards were able to complete this one in a swift 2 hours and 12 minutes, with the home team finally emerging victorious 3-0 in front of a damp 16,191 fans.

This one couldn’t have been scripted better when it came to the weather. A drizzle started in the top of the second inning and had turned into actual rainfall as the game moved into the third.

Still scoreless going to the bottom of the fifth, CJ Abrams hit a two-out solo home run into the visiting bullpen to give the Nats a 1-0 lead just as the rain turned into a full-on downpour.

“He's throwing those sinkers running away from me," Abrams said after the game. "So I was just trying to go the other way with it. I didn't think it was gonna go out, but it left.”

The 22-year-old shortstop was able to muscle an outside 92 mph sinker from Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas 382 feet the opposite way for his seventh homer of the season.

“Just staying back and seeing it get deep," he said. "It was a ball outside, I saw that. But it was a good job of just staying on it and going the other way with it.”

"It was good," Davey Martinez said. "And the fact that he stayed on the ball as well as he did and hit the ball the other way. He's been working with Darnell about staying on the ball. The ball jumps off his bat, it really does. If we can keep him in the middle of the field, he's gonna be really good. And you saw that today.”

Back-to-back doubles by Luis García and Jeimer Candelario increased their lead to 2-0 to start the bottom of the sixth, even though the third baseman was thrown out trying to stretch his into a triple.

García then doubled to lead off the eighth, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on Candelario's groundout to first to make it 3-0.

The Nats were paced by an efficient start by Trevor Williams. After giving up 11 earned runs and eight walks over his last four starts, none of which he completed six innings, the right-hander was much better at throwing strikes today.

“It was good," Williams said. "From the start, with the rain games that could always be a wild card, so it's just a matter of getting ahead early and executing. So that was the game plan going into this game. Trusting Keibert in that situation and kind of just see where everything's at. I thought we did a good job of mixing well today and just executing early and hoping that they make weak contact early.”

Williams completed six scoreless innings plus one batter in the seventh, allowing five hits and no walks with four strikeouts. His strikeouts came split between his slider and sweeper.

“Possibly, with the results, sure," Williams answered when asked if today was his best outing this year. "But is today the best I've felt this year? No. But it's one of those where you get 32 starts, 33 starts, and you're gonna feel amazing for five, you're gonna feel awful for five and you're trying to figure out everything in between. So I'm just thankful that today we came out and played well.”

The one batter in the seventh resulted in a leadoff single by Lars Nootbaar. Though Williams was only at 75 pitches (50 of which were for strikes), Martinez came out of the dugout to go to his bullpen.

That was an interesting decision with his starter at a respectable pitch count and holding a two-run lead. The Nats were without Carl Edwards Jr., who landed on the 15-day injured list right shoulder inflammation before the game started. Hunter Harvey’s availability was in question after giving up two runs and throwing 31 pitches in last night’s loss. And it was unlikely new left-hander Joe La Sorsa (recalled from Triple-A Rochester to replace Edwards) was going to be thrust into a high-leverage situation right away.

So it was Mason Thompson who replaced Williams in the seventh with a runner on first. He walked Nolan Arenado to immediately put two runners on base, and after a comebacker by Willson Contreras, they were both in scoring position with only one out.

“Just mixing in all his pitches. He really had good stuff today," Martinez said of Williams. "When he gets around that 75-80 pitch mark, for him because he hasn't started really, this is first time starting the year or so, so that to me is good enough when we have Mason ready to go and those other guys in the back end of the bullpen. They all did their job today and it was tough to pitch out there today.”

A strikeout of Nolan Gorman left the two runners in scoring position with two outs for Kyle Finnegan, who was summoned from the ‘pen after Thompson only threw 16 pitches.

Finnegan escaped that jam on five pitches, but put himself in another one in the eighth. With one out, the right-hander issued a single to Tommy Edman and a walk to Brendan Donovan. But an infield fly rule and groundout to García kept the Nats’ lead intact.

And even though Harvey had thrown those 31 pitches Tuesday, he did in fact come in for the top of the ninth, recording his fourth save on a scant 13 pitches.

“If Mason's good, he's gonna get the seventh now. And you have Finnegan and Harvey," Martinez said of his bullpen plan. "And Weems has been throwing the ball well, so Weems is gonna have to step up a little bit and pitch some high-leverage situations in the bullpen as well. And now that we have a lefty, we can match up a little bit here and there. So that's good to have.”

And so the Nationals finally won a ballgame to avoid a second straight sweep at the hands of their opponents this homestand. After dropping the first five and 13 of their last 15 overall, they found a victory, which has eluded them so much in June.

“It felt really good," Martinez said. "And I always talk about, forget about what happened yesterday. Forget about what happened the day before. We need to be where our feet are and take care of today. And these guys came out today. They came out like they do every day, they put those games aside and they come back ready to play baseball. And today we played a really, really good game. I'm proud of the way they went out today, so let's continue to do that. Go out there tomorrow and limit our mistakes, play good clean baseball and throw strikes.”

Maybe it can count as two victories since, at least for today, they beat the rain as well.