Ross snaps losing streak with gritty 2-1 win over Cardinals

The May blues are over for Joe Ross.

Thursday night, the Nationals bounced back from an early deficit to down the Cardinals 2-1, snapping Ross' personal four-game skid.

Ross allowed a fourth inning solo shot to Cardinals shortstop Aledmys Diaz and then nothing else to notch his fourth win of the season and first since April 30, also against St. Louis.

The biggest matchup for Ross came in the seventh inning.

Despite arriving close to the century mark in pitches thrown, Ross pitched around a pair of singles in the frame to induce a threat-killing 4-6-3 double play from lefty hitter Kolten Wong to end the inning.

"I still felt good. I felt like I still had the good fastball with command," Ross said. "I was trying to pitch my way into a double play to get out of the inning. Count got a little longer than I would've liked but ended up with the result I was looking for.

"It was big for me to kind of build that confidence late in the game to try and get out of there and give us a chance to win."

Ross finished with a career-high 110 pitches. After six innings, Ross had fired 94 pitches. Even so, manager Dusty Baker left Ross in for that game-deciding seventh frame.

"Kind of a big deal," Ross said. "He trusts the starters to work our way out of the jams. He's definitely shown that, not only with me but all of the other guys. I think it's good you kind of earn that trust or he lets you go out there and do your job. To be able to get out of the inning was huge. So hopefully next time he does the same."

Baker even let Ross stay for seventh knowing that left-handed hitters Brandon Moss, and possibly Wong and even Greg Garcia, could bat. Baker said it wasn't a favorable split or statistic that made him stay with Ross. He even had trouble explaining why.

"I don't know why I do stuff sometimes," Baker said. "Sometimes I go by the numbers and sometimes I go on what I feel and sometimes I go on what I hope."

So Ross made it through that seventh. Ross earned a strikeout of the dangerous Yadier Molina and got Wong to ground into a double play. What can this mean for the 22-year-old's confidence going forward?

"What it can do for him is to pitch to the situation," Baker said. "Sometimes you need a strikeout, which he got on Yadier Molina, a very tough hitter. And then he pitched to the situation to try get a ground ball from Kolten Wong, and that's what pitching's all about. And hitting.

"You hit to the situation, and you pitch to the situation. We were fortunate enough tonight that Joe did both."

It's not an ordinary "situation" either. Ross had to fight through two men on and a no-out situation in that seventh inning. When Wong arrived for the biggest matchup, Ross had thrown 104 pitches. But Ross was feeling that confidence in himself, too.

"Just kind of knowing yourself, knowing the batter obviously, what he's going to do in a certain situation," Ross said. "One out, he's trying to base knock, trying to get the runs in, just kind of work from there. That two-seam was working well, kind of just created that ground ball I was looking for."

Veteran closer Jonathan Papelbon, who notched his 362nd career save, reached out to Ross after the game to tell him what he thought of the gritty performance. Papelbon said both Baker and Ross made game-changing moves to notch the win.

"I had told him tonight that he really showed the team something tonight, really both of them," Papelbon said. "I think they both showed the team that you can trust them and lean on them. It's a long season, and you have to have those opportunities to trust each other. Dusty trusted Joe, and Joe showed him he could trust him. Great job by both of them, I thought."

The 23-year-old Bryce Harper, who hit a game-tying solo shot and at one time was the youngest player on this team, reflected on what Ross has been able to do and what lies ahead.

"It's a lot of fun to watch him pitch, especially at the age he is," Harper said. "Being able to come up and do what he did last year and do what he's doing now. He's got the stuff to be very, very good one day. Of course, he's good now, but be one of the best (someday).

"That's a lot of fun to be able to watch and see him grow and see him look at Max (Scherzer) and learn some stuff from (Stephen) Strasburg, having the group he has around him I think is gonna help him tremendously and it's a lot of fun to play behind a guy like that."