Glover, Treinen and Kelley get bullpen back on track

One important reason the Nationals were able to sustain long enough to earn an opportunity to win in the 10th inning Friday against the Phillies was the quality pitching from their bullpen, something they had not enjoyed for the past few games.

In the Phillies' final three innings, they were held to no runs on one hit. Koda Glover, Blake Treinen and Shawn Kelley kept the Phillies off the board.

The Nationals' Daniel Murphy lined a double down the left field line that scored Bryce Harper all the way from first base in the 3-2 comeback win in 10 innings.

It was a crucial step forward for a bullpen that had been roughed up last weekend against these very same Phillies in Philadelphia. In those three games, the bullpen allowed the Phillies to score 12 runs: four on Friday, seven on Saturday and one on Sunday: the back-breaking, winning fourth run after Ryan Zimmerman had tied the game with a three-run shot.

But this Friday was a different story. With the game tied 2-2 into the eighth, Glover arrived and induced weak contact in the infield and struck out Odúbel Herrera.

"That's what he's got," Kelley said. "He's got stuff that guys can't hit, really. A lot of [the previous bullpen trouble] was us kind of hurting ourselves. We were falling behind hitters and walking guys, and if we get back to what we're capable of and just believing that we're better than the hitter is and throwing our stuff, then that's what Koda can do. I hope he does it all year 'cause that's fun to watch."

Treinen pitched the ninth and got into a little bit of a jam with one out, allowing a single to Michael Saunders and a walk to Tommy Joseph.

In a big moment, Treinen then got Cameron Rupp to hit into a double play engineered by some sleight-of-hand glove work by Murphy. Treinen said he was looking to force Rupp into a grounder to an infielder.

"Same thing I was trying to do to Joseph, induce a groundball double play to get out of the inning," Treinen explained. "I threw good pitches to him, he was just spitting on them. I think maybe he knew what I was trying to do and I just need to do a better job of executing a pitch to entice a swing. Kudos to him, laying off of some pitches, and kudos to our defense for making some plays."

When the play was over, there seemed to be some uncertainty about how the two outs that were recorded had been made. Had Murphy tagged Joseph going by, or had Joseph run out of the base path, or was he tagged out on the relay throw from Zimmerman? In any case, second base umpire Greg Gibson signaled the out at second, and the double play stood. The Phillies did not challenge the call.

Video replays appeared to show Murphy tagging Joseph with his empty glove as he ran by with the ball in his throwing hand.

"I thought he tagged him right away," Treinen said. "He tagged him with the glove and not his hand, and that's why Zim threw it back, and then he got tagged before he got on the base. That was the interesting thing. That's what we were talking about. I thought for sure that we had a double play.

"How do you review that? Because I thought he was out clearly at first. And I thought he was out clearly because [Murphy] tagged him, but apparently the ball was in his hand and then they threw it back, tagged him out."

Then came the 10th with the game still tied. Shawn Kelley (1-0) struck out the first two batters and got César Hernández to line out to left field to set the stage for the game-winning rally.

"I had pretty good command," Kelley said. "I was able to keep the ball in on those lefties. Slider was working down and in to them. Felt good, I was throwing a lot of strikes. My job there is to get us back in the dugout. Heart of the order is coming up and we got a chance to win that game if I put up a zero. That's all I was trying to do."

It was certainly a rough week for the bullpen. The relievers had allowed nine homers in the season's first nine games. But Kelley believes the ragged week is something every bullpen can go through at any time during the season.

"We've all discussed with each other this is going to change and this is going to get better," Kelley said. "This is that one window where everybody goes through a little funk. We just did it out of the gate. It's behind us, we had an off day yesterday and let's go, let's strap it on and get going."

Treinen said that what he, Glover and Kelley were able to do in the Friday game was more in tune with what the relievers had shown prior to the recent rough patch.

"I think that is something that we look at as how we should go about our job, and what we are used to seeing is being aggressive in the zone and putting guys away and inducing weak contact," Treinen said. "That's what we did last year. That's what we did in spring. It's what we're looking to do this year.

"It all just depends on execution, and I think a couple of pitches get away from us early in the season, and that's baseball. Moving forward I think tonight is a step in the right direction and guys look crisp."