Unexpected stars shine in Nats' rout of Yankees (updated)

No Stephen Strasburg? No worries, because Erick Fedde was ready for his emergency start.

No Juan Soto? No worries, because Victor Robles, Asdrúbal Cabrera and the rest of the Nationals lineup more than made up for the continued absence of the club's best hitter.

And if those two developments during tonight's 9-2 blowout win over the Yankees weren't surprising enough, Davey Martinez managed to get five scoreless innings from his bullpen without using any of his top three arms.

It might look like an unconventional path to victory in hindsight, but it was the perfect path for the Nationals on this Saturday night, resulting in the club's first win of this 60-game sprint.

"That's what these guys do," Martinez said. "They love being around each other. They know we're under different circumstances. But they're going to pick each other up."

With Strasburg scratched due to an impinged nerve in his wrist and Soto still forced to watch on TV while waiting to be cleared to rejoin the team, the Nats turned to others to take down the Bronx Bombers.

Fedde impressed with four strong innings before he began to tire. Robles and Cabrera each homered, doubled and singled to lead a balanced and persistent offensive attack. And a quartet of less-heralded bullpen arms completely shut down New York's vaunted lineup, never letting the outcome of this game come into doubt.

"This is the bullpen; we've got to step up and get the job done tonight," said Ryne Harper, one of those four relievers who posted zeros. "Obviously, we would've loved to have Stras out there. But we feel like we were ready to go out there, attack it and throw strikes. It feels good to get it done."

The day began, just as Thursday did, with the surprising and upsetting news that one of the Nationals' biggest stars would not be appearing in this game.

Soto's positive coronavirus test shocked everyone on opening day. Strasburg's injured right hand was less shocking to those in the clubhouse who already knew he was ailing, but came out of the blue to reporters, who had no inkling of the problem.

The prospect of subbing in Fedde for Strasburg at the last minute looked daunting on paper. In practice, the 27-year-old right-hander was more than up to the challenge.

"I think, if anything, this is my normal," said Fedde of his ever-changing role and status within the organization. "Four years of this. It's something that happens when you're on a team that has this many quality players. It's just one of those things where I have to take my opportunities and run with them. But it's definitely become something of a norm, so it shouldn't throw me off."

With an electric fastball that both froze hitters when pitched on the corners and made them swing and miss when over the plate, Fedde looked as impressive as he has in quite some time. And his outing would've looked even better if not for an astounding four errors made by his infielders (one by Howie Kendrick, one by Starlin Castro, two by Trea Turner on a single play) in the first three innings.

"Those things can't happen," Martinez said. "We're better than that. These guys know that. We've got to just catch the ball. My biggest concern is when a guy's pitching like that, his pitch count goes up when we start making errors like that. That hurts us in the long run."

To his credit, Fedde didn't let the gaffes rattle him. He got Giancarlo Stanton to ground into a double play to end the first. He got help from Cabrera, who made a diving stop at third base that would've made Anthony Rendon proud to help quash a third-inning rally.

But without having been stretched out the way the rotation regulars were during the abbreviated exhibition season, Fedde showed clear signs of fatigue in the top of the fourth. Stanton made amends by absolutely destroying a 3-0 fastball, making a dent into the advertising tarp behind the left field bullpen and the Statcast system that spurted out these video game numbers: 483 feet, 121.3 mph exit velocity.

"If I could have it back, I'd probably do something a little different," Fedde said with a laugh. "But in that case, I looked to not give him free bases. But he definitely crushed it."

The fourth looked like it might get away from Fedde when he walked Brett Gardner to load the bases with two outs. But he calmly got DJ LeMahieu to ground out to end the inning, and with his pitch count at 68, he got some elbow taps when he returned to the dugout, his work done for the evening after allowing only two runs (one earned).

The Nationals had stormed out to a 5-2 lead by then, thanks to a sustained rally in the bottom of the second that wound up knocking out Yankees starter James Paxton before he recorded his fourth out of the game. Five straight batters reached to open the frame, with Robles driving the first two in via a double down the left field line and Turner "driving" the other one in via a double play.

Robles had much more in store. He came up to bat in the bottom of the fourth against reliever Michael King and somehow turned on a fastball well inside and still got it to stay just fair enough to clang off the pole down the left field line for a two-run homer.

Robles would go on to single in his third at-bat and leave himself a triple shy of the cycle, taking over offensive responsibilities with his good friend Soto forced to watch on TV.

"He's definitely missed big-time here, but individually we all have a role," Robles said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez said. "We all know what our job is. It's just a matter of making sure you do your job."

Robles wasn't alone. Cabrera matched his achievement, singling in the second, doubling in a run in the fifth and then launching a solo homer to right in the seventh to pad the Nationals' lead.

The unsung heroes of this one, though, were the middle relievers Martinez entrusted to record some critical outs when the game was still close: Tanner Rainey and Harper.

On a normal, run-of-the-mill July evening, a manager might use his long man after his starter is pulled before the fifth inning. But in a short season, and with the heart of the Yankees order coming up, Martinez entrusted the fifth to Rainey, and the move paid off in near-perfect fashion.

Rainey got Aaron Judge and Gleyber Torres to fly out, then deftly threw four straight balls to Stanton before getting Aaron Hicks to ground out to end the innocuous inning.

"Counting today, we have 59 games left. We've got to start doing things like that," Martinez said. "I talked to guys in the bullpen about using them in different ways depending on the situation."

Harper then turned in two scoreless innings in his Nationals debut. The right-hander, acquired over the winter from the Twins, came in with a reputation for a wicked curveball, and he lived up to the billing. He struck out four, the first three on those breaking balls before he surprised Torres with a high fastball.

The work of Rainey and Harper, combined with the Nats' tack-on offense that included a late Michael A. Taylor homer, gave Martinez the luxury of closing out a win with rookies James Bourque and Kyle Finnegan on the mound and thus saving all three of his big-name relievers (Will Harris, Daniel Hudson, Sean Doolittle) for Sunday's series finale.

Who'd have thought at the beginning of the day, with all that had gone wrong, they'd find themselves in such a fortuitous position?

"No Strasburg, no Soto," Martinez said. "They were thinking about them. They talked about them. They went out and played something special tonight."