WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — Don’t look now but the Washington Nationals have won four of their last six games and took two of three games against the New York Mets in Citi Field, pushing to the Mets to the brink in the third game before falling late.
The 2022 Washington Nationals finished a league-worst 55-107 and the expectations weren’t much higher for the 2023 squad but right now, they’re firing on all cylinders and surprising everyone including their own fans.
Ryan Clary, host of the Locked On Nationals podcast discussed the Nationals’ win over the Mets on Wednesday and more specifically, he gushed about starter Mackenzie Gore’s performance in the 4-1 victory.
Clary said, “As we get into the season, we continue to go and get to that marathon endpoint of game 162. You are starting to see some improvements with this team already.” Clary added that the thing that has surprised him the most so far in 2023 is the Nationals’ starting pitching. He said, “They’ve been lights out.”
Gore outdueled Mets’ starter Kodai Senga on Wednesday night. Gore lasted six innings, gave up one run on four hits, walked two and struck out 10. He ended his outing striking out Tommy Pham to end the bottom of the sixth inning.
It’s Gore’s first full season as a starter and he has 35 strikeouts in five starts. He’s thrown 27 innings and has given up nine runs which works out to a 3.00 ERA. Clary was most impressed with how Gore handled the Mets’ line up. Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Lindor, and Pete Alonso were all hitless against Gore and more importantly, against the bullpen as well. The four hits Gore surrendered were the only hits the Mets got.
The Nationals relievers, Carl Edwards, Jr., Hunter Harvey and Kyle Finnegan didn’t allow a hit in three innings and struck out five.
Gore has had a tendency to give up walks in bunches—he has issued 16 so far in 2023—but he didn’t on Wednesday. Clary said it’s to be expected from a young player who is still going through the ups and downs of being a full-time Major Leaguer. He walked Nimmo in the bottom of the fifth and Jeff McNeil in the bottom of the sixth.
Nationals manager Davey Martinez said about Gore, ““When he can pound the strike zone and use his fastball to throw strike one, he is going to be what he was today -- very effective. He has a lot of movement on his ball. But I’m also proud of him just going out there and trusting his fastball, keeping the ball down and using it. Every now and then, he threw his slider, but he was good.”
Even Mets manager Buck Showalter was impressed with what he saw from Gore, “We knew [the Nationals] were pitching as well as anybody in the league coming in, and we're seeing that. You can see why MacKenzie Gore was a guy they wanted for a guy like Soto. We knew he was going to be a challenge."
The Nationals offense scored two runs off Senga in the top of the second, Jeff Brigham in the seventh and Adam Ottavino in the eighth. And they've been patient all series but especially on Tuesday and Wednesday when they walked a combined 13 times and scored nine runs.
Clary said, “This hasn’t been a bad team to watch at all.” And he’s right because last year at this point in the season, the Nationals were 7-16 after 23 games. Today they’re 9-14. That doesn’t seem like a huge improvement overall but if you look closely at the results from last season you’ll find that from April 20 - April 30, 2022, the Nationals lost nine of out 10 games and had an eight-game losing streak from April 20th through the 28th. This year, they’re holding their own against a team like the Mets who will more than likely be battling for the division title when the season winds down and looking for a four-game sweep.
When a team is rebuilding like the Nationals, these are the kinds of things to watch and get excited about. Are they going to be contenders for the division title? Hardly, but at least they’re making things a little more enjoyable for their fans.
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