With batterymate Ruiz locked up, Gray gets back to work

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Few within the Nationals clubhouse have known Keibert Ruiz longer than Josiah Gray, the two having come up together in the Dodgers’ farm system before their lives were forever changed when they were the centerpiece prospects acquired for Max Scherzer and Trea Turner.

So when Ruiz officially signed an eight-year, $50 million extension Saturday, Gray couldn’t help but feel something special for his teammate and friend.

“It was awesome,” the right-hander said. “Keib deserves it. We all see how hard he’s worked, how good he is with you guys in the media, how good he is with us in the clubhouse. Really happy for him. He’s all-deserving, and I’m really excited to throw to him for years and years.”

Ruiz is now under contract through at least the 2030 season, with club options for 2031 and 2032 tacked onto the deal beyond that. Gray, with 1 1/2 years of big league service time, is under team control through 2027 unless he agrees to an extension as well someday.

Regardless, they’re going to be working together as a battery for a while, two of the key faces of the Nationals’ rebuild.

“It shows the Nationals are really positive on where the players are right now,” Gray said. “So as a young player myself, if you’re offered those opportunities, you obviously have to sit down with your representation, your family, and evaluate if you want to do it or don’t want to do it. As a young player, you take note of those things. And I think the Nationals are putting a really good effort forward in terms of locking a guy like Keibert up. It’s definitely a positive step, a step in the right direction.”

The two paired up tonight as the starting battery for what became a 10-7 Nats victory thanks to a bottom-of-the-eighth rally spurred by young prospects Armando Cruz and Trey Lipscomb. Gray pitched the initial 3 1/3 innings, allowing one earned run while striking out four, but he admittedly wasn’t as sharp as he would’ve liked and had to be pulled mid-inning with his pitch count up to 62.

“Just throwing a lot of pitches, burying a lot of sliders in the dirt, knowing how good that pitch can be for me,” he said. “I think just throwing it early in counts and throwing it a lot more for strikes is going to be a method of success for me, and today I didn’t do that as well. Just being uncompetitive with that pitch was the main frustration. Being able to be better with that pitch is just going to open more doors.”

Gray, who went a week between starts and thus had two bullpen sessions to work on things, is now back on a regular five-day schedule with the rest of the rotation. There’s still time for changes, but at the moment Patrick Corbin lines up for Opening Day against the Braves, followed by Gray and MacKenzie Gore, with Trevor Williams and Cade Cavalli rounding out the projected rotation.

Gray continued to work on the newest addition to his repertoire tonight: a cutter he throws inside to left-handed hitters.

“I think for lefties, it’s going to be really effective, just getting off the barrel,” he said. “I threw some good ones today, some ones that weren’t as good. That’s just a matter of developing a pitch as you go.”

The Nationals want Gray to get comfortable throwing that new cutter, but they also want him to focus on competing during these final two weeks of the spring, recognizing the green light will be coming on for good sooner than they might realize.

“He fell behind a lot of hitters, but he went out there and battled,” manager Davey Martinez said. “This is part of spring training. I’ve said this before: This time of spring training, you’re going to have your little lulls, and today was one of those days for him. We’ll regroup, get him back in the next five days, and hopefully he pounds the strike zone.”