Still way too soon to know what kind of pitcher Gray will be

As you watched Josiah Gray alternate between misfiring pitches well outside of the strike zone to his arm side and leaving them right over the heart of the plate to be hammered by Mets hitters Sunday afternoon, you couldn't help but be alarmed.

This was a bad start, and there was no way to try to frame it as anything other than that. It included six runs and seven hits allowed in three innings, two more homers surrendered and 82 pitches thrown. There was nothing for Gray to hang his hat on at the end of the day.

"I honestly don't think there's anything positive today," the rookie right-hander said in an honest postgame Zoom session with reporters. "From pitch one to pitch ... I don't know how many pitches I had today, I was battling command. I was battling execution. A lot of hard-hit balls. Honestly, I'll just take nothing positive from this."

Nor should he. There's nothing to be gained from trying to search for positives in a performance like this. If anything, Gray is best served acknowledging just how awry things went this time and using that as motivation to be better, much better, his next time out.

"Obviously, I was frustrated," he said of his immediate reaction to the start. "And that frustration didn't leave me for about an hour, if not more. I just had to accept the frustration, accept the struggle that today was. It's not going to be the last time, but it definitely doesn't feel good. Especially after the last outing."

Ah yes, his last outing. When he gave up six runs on seven hits in four innings against the Phillies. So that makes it two in a row, and that only creates more cause for concern about the 23-year-old.

"I wouldn't say it's concern at all," Gray insisted. "It's part of the process. There are guys making $300 million who go out and make some bad starts. I'm not going to worry about it at all. I'm going to go back to the drawing board, fix some things. I'm going to go out there in another five days and give it my all. I'm not going to be worried about it at all."

It's a mature approach from a rookie, and one those around him have noticed since he arrived last month from the Dodgers.

"I specifically told him that he's going to learn a lot about himself pitching up here every five days," manager Davey Martinez said. "There's going to be some growing pains, and we've just got to get through them. But I reiterated: 'You're going to be really good. You've just got to stay with it. We're going to get you to where you're consistent every five days, and you're going to take off.' This is just part of the process, and he understands that."

It also helps not to pay too much attention to the numbers at this point. Gray may now own a 5.40 ERA and 1.400 WHIP with the Nationals, but that comes from a sample of only seven starts. And after his first five, he had a 2.89 ERA and 1.107 WHIP.

So which pitcher is he? Is the guy who looked so poised in his first month with the Nats, who struck out 10 Braves, who induced 20 swings-and-misses in a single, five-inning start? Or is he the guy who keeps giving up towering blasts, 15 total home runs in 43 big league innings, and at times Sunday looked helpless against the Mets.

The answer: We don't know yet. And that's fine.

The pitcher who Gray has most drawn comparisons to within the organization is Jordan Zimmermann, a fellow second-round pick from a Division II college who had maturity beyond his years and a bulldog mindset when he was on the mound. But here's what you might not remember about Zimmermann: It took him two years to become that guy.

Zimmermann was very erratic as a rookie in 2009 before learning he needed Tommy John surgery. And he was still figuring things out when he returned late in the 2010 season. It wasn't until 2011 when he posted a sub-4.00 ERA for the first time and began his run of consistent success that resulted in a 3.32 ERA, 1.159 WHIP and one no-hitter among his 178 career starts for the Nats.

But you know what Zimmermann's numbers were after his first seven starts? How about a 5.71 ERA and 1.415 WHIP. Yep, he was worse than Gray in his first seven starts.

This isn't to say with any certainty Gray will wind up pitching as well for the Nationals as Zimmermann once did. It's impossible to know at this point if he will. And that's the point. It's far too soon to truly know what the Nats have in him.

Maybe over time he blossoms into a frontline starter for them. Maybe he proves not to be capable of consistently getting big league hitters out. Whatever the case, it's going to be a while until we know for sure.

Until then, it's up to Gray not to think too much about the big picture but rather the next task on his agenda. Figure out what went wrong in his last start and work to correct it for his next one.

"He wants to be better," Martinez said. "He once used the word 'perfect,' and I tell him: 'You don't want to be perfect. Perfect is not what we want. We just want you to be consistent, that's the word we want.' He understands that. These young guys, a lot of them are going to be critical. A lot of them take accountability for what they're doing. But they're going to get better."