Gonzalez, Nats confounded by trio of first-inning homers

BALTIMORE - Only once in his Nationals career had Gio Gonzalez surrendered three homers in a game. Never in his major league career had he surrendered three homers in an inning.

So imagine the shock the left-hander and his teammates were experiencing around 7:15 p.m. Monday night when Joey Rickard, Mark Trumbo and Trey Mancini all went deep the span of six batters, turning the bottom of the first at Camden Yards into a stunning display of power.

Then again, if anybody knows the potential of the Orioles lineup inside this hitter-friendly ballpark, it's the guy who was behind the plate tonight wearing a curly W helmet.

"It's an aggressive lineup where it doesn't matter where in the count you are," Matt Wieters said. "You've got to be able to locate that fastball, or they'll make you pay."

They certainly did. The Orioles rode those three rapid-fire homers off Gonzalez in the bottom of the first to take a quick lead on the Nationals, then hung on late for a 6-4 victory in the opener of this year's Battle of the Beltways.

Two of the homers made logical sense to the Nats' starting battery. Rickard hit a 2-1 fastball that while on the inner third of the plate was thigh-high. Mancini, meanwhile, got a first-pitch fastball right down the pipe for his two-run blast.

The surprise was Trumbo's solo homer, which came on a 1-2 fastball that was 16 inches above the top of the strike zone. Yes, that's accurate: 16 inches above the top of the strike zone.

"I think we were all surprised," Gonzalez said. "Even him rounding home."

Was Trumbo actually surprised? That may be up for debate.

These four games are going to involve a lot of cat-and-mouse play between Wieters (who knows the Orioles lineup extremely well) and the Orioles lineup (which knows Wieters' game-calling tendencies extremely well). In his first month-plus with the Nats, Wieters has shown a propensity to call for high fastballs with two strikes, trying to get batters to chase.

It has been an effective approach for the most part. But the way Trumbo managed to get on top of a pitch that was at his eyelids had to leave more than a few people wondering if he was looking for something just like that.

"That's where they pitch a lot of guys," Orioles manager Buck Showalter told reporters. "But if you can get the barrel over your hands there, you can make some good things happen."

Wieters seemed to suggest the Nationals' plan was to pitch Trumbo like that, expressing shock his former teammate was able to make contact the way he did.

"He was pretty hot last year, so he hit some pitches that were definitely balls," the catcher said. "But that's what's funny about this game: You can see some pitches that a guy may be struggling with, and then all of a sudden it can change with a blink of the eye. He put a good swing on a ball that was a ball."

Down 4-0 only six batters into the game, Gonzalez could easily have crumbled. To his credit, he rebounded and managed to salvage something from this start, going six innings and keeping the game within striking distance for his teammates, who nearly pulled off a ninth-inning miracle.

"I mean, you've just got to go out there and continue to attack," Gonzalez said. "You can't just let up on one inning. The fact is that you've just got to keep battling. ... The only thing that beat us tonight was the long ball. But other than that, I think we did a hell of a job. We pounded the strike zone. We went after them. I felt like I was more in the zone than previously."

How, then, would Gonzalez approach this Baltimore lineup if he faced it again?

"I just got to expand a little more," he said. "Maybe throw it in the backstop. Maybe they'll swing at them."