Nats make life easy with doubleheader opener win (updated)

A day-night doubleheader is no easy challenge for a major league manager, certainly not when it comes two weeks into a season in which no starting pitcher has completed six innings and no days off had been savored until Monday night’s scheduled series opener was rained out.

The Nationals, though, did just about everything they could this afternoon during a 6-1 victory over the Diamondbacks to make life easy on Davey Martinez.

They got a strong outing from Josiah Gray (one run in 5 1/3 innings). They got a key rally to take the lead. They got good work from a couple of their top relievers. And then they tacked on three late insurance runs, allowing closer Tanner Rainey to take a seat and Austin Voth to pitch the ninth instead.

Too bad more fans weren’t here to witness it. The announced paid attendance of 9,261 officially was the smallest in Nationals history (excluding 2021 games with COVID-19 capacity restrictions), though that number doesn’t include anyone who purchased a ticket to Monday night’s originally scheduled game and already exchanged it for a future game. (The previous low in club history was 10,999 on Sept. 20, 2010 against the Astros.)

Tiny gathering or not, those who did brave 47-degree temperatures and a strong wind out of the northwest were treated to a quality performance from the home team, which opened this 10-game homestand on a positive note.

In the opener of a doubleheader, with a bullpen that has been taxed through the season’s first two weeks, quality and length were of the essence from Gray this afternoon. He certainly gave them quality. But though he was in position to give them length as well, Martinez opted not to push his young starter farther than he previously had this year.

“I would say it’s the same mentality as any other start,” Gray said. “Just go out there and put the team in a good position to win. And I feel like I did that today.”

Gray needed 20 pitches to complete the top of the first, but he was pretty efficient after that. He got through the third on 46 pitches, his only real mistake a first-pitch fastball to Daulton Varsho that wound up clearing the wall in center field for a 1-0 Diamondbacks lead.

The fourth inning was tougher for Gray, who gave up a double, a walk and a single yet somehow emerged unscathed thanks to a couple of strikeouts and an aggressive attempt by David Peralta to try to steal third. (Though not as egregious as a similar attempt by a Nationals player earlier in the game.)

“It could’ve been easy there after the Peralta double to let things snowball and have a walk here, a hit there, and it’s a different ballgame,” the right-hander said. “It’s just focusing on the next pitch and making that my biggest goal.”

Gray finished strong, retiring the last five batters he faced, raising his strikeout total to eight and his pitch count to 87. And that led to decision time for Martinez: Give his young righty a chance to become the team’s first starter to complete six innings, or go to his bullpen right then and there?

Martinez opted to go to his bullpen. With the left-handed-hitting David Peralta and Seth Beer due up for Arizona, Sean Doolittle rode in via the bullpen cart and took over for Gray after he got the switch-hitting Ketel Marte to fly out to open the inning.

“One, his pitch count was up there,” the manager said. “And we had Doolittle ready for that spot, with those two lefties coming up there. I thought he kept us in the ballgame, and I wanted him to come out feeling good about himself. And he did that.”

“I knew the situation,” Gray said. “I saw Doolittle warming up, and I knew I had (Ketel) Marte. So I figured get Marte out and then Doolittle probably comes in. I never want the ball taken from me, but I understood the situation and the lefties. It worked out, and we got the win, so that’s all that matters.”

Doolittle did his job, though he did allow his first baserunner of the year after retiring 15 straight batters. And when Steve Cishek and Kyle Finnegan posted zeros in the seventh and eighth innings, respectively, the Nats were in comfortable position to finish this off.

The bullpen had a chance to pitch with the lead only because the Nationals lineup finally broke through against Madison Bumgarner after four innings of flailing swings and disgruntled facial expressions. The veteran lefty held them hitless for 4 2/3 innings, the only baserunners he allowed to that point coming on four walks.

And even then, the Nats ran themselves out of one potential rally. Leading off second base with two outs and Juan Soto at the plate, Alcides Escobar saw the Diamondbacks infield shifted and thought he could swipe third base with ease. He thought wrong and was thrown out by catcher Jose Herrera. Given Soto’s presence at the plate, the benefits of Escobar reaching third base with two outs didn’t seem significant enough to take the risk of being thrown out and ending the inning. And indeed it wasn’t.

“Bumgarner’s tough on lefties. He’s really tough with two strikes on lefties,” Martinez said, defending Escobar’s thought process on the play. “And I know Juan’s a good hitter. But if he makes it, great. If he doesn’t, he gives Juan another opportunity up there to start fresh (the next inning). We had a big inning after that, we scored some runs. I don’t mind it. I really don’t. Especially against that guy, who’s pitching pretty well.”

Indeed, it didn’t hurt the Nationals because they scored two runs in the fifth with a two-out rally that began when second baseman Marte dropped Escobar’s relatively routine popup for an error. Taking full advantage was Victor Robles, who ripped an RBI double into the left field corner for only his second hit of the young season.

“I’m obviously very excited and happy that the results are there,” Robles said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. “I haven’t stopped working. But it’s good to go out there and see the results coming out.”

When César Hernández followed Robles with his own RBI double just inside the third base line, the Nats had themselves a lead. They extended it to 3-1 on Maikel Franco’s RBI single in the sixth, tacked on three more insurance runs in the eighth, and that set up the bullpen nicely to finish off the victory and get this long day of baseball started in uplifting fashion.

“I’m very encouraged by the way they’re coming through,” Martinez said. “Especially with guys in scoring position today.”