Nats stick with the formula to give Martinez first managerial win

CINCINNATI - Davey Martinez wasn't expecting it. His mind was still racing moments after his team had finished off a 2-0 opening victory over the Reds, the first of his managerial career. So he never saw it coming when Nationals players ambushed him in the clubhouse with a celebratory beer shower, the olfactory remnants of which were still evident 30 minutes later after Martinez had taken an actual shower to try to clean himself off.

"I was a little wet," he said. "A lot wet, actually."

Consider this the only moment of the entire day that caught Martinez by surprise. Everything else went exactly according to plan, thanks to Max Scherzer (six scoreless innings on 100 pitches), a lineup that deftly manufactured two runs and the same three-headed bullpen monster that made the seventh, eighth and ninth innings last summer and fall so routine.

"Start early, finish late and good pitching," as Adam Eaton said, "is a recipe for a lot of wins."

Martinez would happily take another 94 or so of these over the next six months. That won't happen, of course. There will be plenty of games in which the longtime bench coach will have to make some tough managerial decisions. But on days like this, he could almost sit back in the dugout and just enjoy the show from a star-laden, veteran roster.

"The biggest thing for me is to not become a fan and just manage the game," he said. "And that's basically what I did. I stayed focused all game. It was hard not to be a fan of Scherzer, watching him pitch. But I knew: 'Hey, he's not going to pitch all nine innings, and we had to start doing some things.'"

Early on, Scherzer had the look of a guy who might just go the distance and refuse to hand the ball over to his manager. In his third career opening day, the two-time reigning Cy Young Award winner mowed down a Reds lineup loaded with left-handed power.

Scherzer retired 11 of the first 12 batters he faced. Nine came via strikeout, including seven in a row during one remarkable stretch from the bottom of the second into the bottom of the fourth that finally ended when All-Star Joey Votto lofted the first pitch he saw to left field for a quick out.

"I knew I was getting some swings and misses," Scherzer said. "But I also knew he was going to come up aggressive, that you've got to execute a pitch right now. Really, it was just a product of working ahead in the count and throwing the right pitch with two strikes."

The Reds did start to make Scherzer work more the second and third time through the lineup, in the process driving up his pitch count. That may have actually worked in the Nationals' favor, though, because when Martinez's starter returned to the dugout after the bottom of the sixth with his pitch count already at 100, there was no need for discussion.

"We talked to him the inning before, and he said he felt great," Martinez said. "But I wasn't going to let him go that much longer. I wasn't. I mean, it's day one. And he did a great job."

Besides, given the three weapons the Nationals have at the back end of their bullpen, why would Martinez have to think twice about pulling his ace after six innings? It was the equivalent of turning on the managerial autopilot when the skipper summoned Brandon Kintzler for the seventh, Ryan Madson for the eighth and then Sean Doolittle for the ninth.

Not that the scenario any of the three relievers faced was simple. The Nationals had scored their first run of the season only four batters in, but that's all they scored until the top of the ninth. So especially for Kintzler and Madson, there was zero margin for error.

"You want to get into a tight game right away, just so you get the confidence with whatever the situation is," said Kintzler, who retired the side with two ground balls and a strikeout. "But 1-0 in a stadium like this, where one little accident, a deep fly ball is gone, you've got to be on top of your game."

Madson's bottom of the eighth might well have been the key inning of the entire game. After getting two quick outs, the veteran setup man got himself into a jam when Votto singled up the middle and Scooter Gennett singled to left to complete a 4-for-4 afternoon. Up came Scott Schebler, who surely figured he'd get a couple of hacks at one of Madson's upper-90s fastballs.

Nope. All he got was a steady dose of changeups, five of them in a row, to be precise. And on the fifth one, he grounded weakly to second base to end the rally.

"I was just staying with (catcher Matt) Wieters," Madson said. "Ninety-nine percent of the time, that's what I do. I always tell him: 'I'm not going to shake you (off). Whatever you call, that's what I'm going to throw.' He just kept putting them down. And I did hesitate just a little bit on the last one. He put it down and I was like ... OK. It's awesome, because I lost my changeup a little bit last year. So to be able to throw it five times in a row and get an out, that's huge for me."

By the time Doolittle took the mound for the bottom of the ninth, the lead had been extended to 2-0 - "it makes my job that much easier" - so he was free to go after Cincinnati's hitters without fear of blowing the save with one poorly located pitch. Even after a two-out walk of pinch-hitter Phillip Ervin, Doolittle was in the driver's seat, striking out the slap-hitting Billy Hamilton to end the game.

The Nationals couldn't have drawn up the final three innings of the game any better.

"I think it was awesome," Doolittle said. "It was a little bit like a baptism by fire: Get in there, this is how it's going to be all year. This is how we drew it up. And for it to work perfectly the first game, where you don't have any room for error in a one-run game on the road, I think that's really big for us moving forward and having that one under our belt."

It certainly won't do anything to diminish Martinez's confidence in his team. One game in, he has no reason to worry about changing the formula. This one went totally by the book.

Except for the postgame beer shower, of course. That was a one-time celebration from a team to its newly christened skipper.

"He's probably waited a long time to be a manager in the big leagues," Eaton said. "To have that, I think he really enjoyed it. And I think all our guys enjoyed it, because he's a great guy."