Cavalli flirts with no-hit bid in latest dominant outing -- proving his growth

WASHINGTON -- Soon after Cade Cavalli made his 25th start last Friday -- his most in any professional season -- the Nationals’ ace insisted that he still had plenty of gas left in the tank.

“I’m just ready to keep going, and I’m grateful that there’s no cap on me and that I can just keep pitching,” Cavalli said.

In the series finale against the Cubs on Thursday, Cavalli delivered again, completing eight innings for the first time in his career while taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning in Washington’s 7-0 win at Nationals Park.

Cavalli’s latest gem was his seventh consecutive quality start -- the longest active streak in the Majors and the longest by a Nationals starter since 2019 (Max Scherzer, 14).

“Coming out of the gates,” manager Blake Butera said, “I thought how efficient he was in the first three innings. I was like, ‘Man if he keeps this up, we’re going to have a decision to make later in the game. This is complete-game type of pitching.’”

Cavalli was in control early against a Cubs offense that entered play averaging 7.1 runs a game over the past nine contests. The right-hander needed just 54 pitches to get through five innings, retiring the first 15 Cubs he faced in order with one strikeout in each frame.

Cavalli had his full array of pitches working, with a particularly efficient breaking ball against the Majors’ second highest-scoring team.

“This team doesn’t really chase and I knew that going in,” Cavalli said. “So, I had to compete and throw it in the box and see what would happen.”

The Cubs first reached base in the sixth, when Cavalli walked Dansby Swanson on four pitches to lead off the inning. Cavalli fell behind 3-0 on Michael Conforto, but got him to ground into a double play before striking out Miguel Amaya on a 98.9 mph fastball to end the sixth.

Having still faced the minimum through six, Cavalli’s no-hit bid continued into the seventh as he struck out Pete Crow-Armstrong for a second time, before Seiya Suzuki flied out to right. But with two strikes and two outs, Michael Busch blooped a single to shallow left to break up the no-hitter.

“In the moment it stinks, but then you’ve just got to get to the next pitch,” Cavalli said. “I know that my defense gave it all they had. It fell in the right spot, you’ve just got to live with that, and I just wanted to keep the score where it was.”

Cavalli received a standing ovation from the 21,463 in attendance, before retiring Alex Bregman with a fly out to center to end any potential threat.

A day shy of his 28th birthday, Cavalli came back out for the eighth inning, worked around a two-out walk to Swanson and struck out Conforto on his 103rd and final pitch of the afternoon. Cavalli emptied the tank in the final at bat, pumping his first and yelling as we walked back to the dugout.

“I felt great,” Cavalli said. “It was good that Blake let me go out for the eighth. I was really excited about that.”

Butera confirmed postgame that had the no-hitter remained intact, Cavalli would have had the chance to go the distance.

“I don’t know how many opportunities you get to have a no-hitter that deep into a game,” Butera said. “If we had to back his [next] start up or give him extra rest, I’m never going to stand in the way of a no-hitter.”

Cavalli is now 6-1 with a 2.36 ERA and a .203 opponents’ average across his last nine starts.

The Nationals’ Opening Day starter, who labored through 3 2/3 innings at Wrigley Field back on March 26, allowed just one hit and two walks to go along with 10 strikeouts in his eight frames.

He is the first pitcher to go eight-plus innings with one or fewer hits, no runs, and 10+ strikeouts against the Cubs since Cole Hamels’ no-hitter against the North Siders on July 25, 2015.

“He threw his breaking ball really well,” catcher Keibert Ruiz said. “He was really sharp today with the curveball, his sweeper and the four-seam. I think at 95 pitches, he was still touching 98, 99 [mph]. That’s really tough to face.”

Cavalli, who underwent Tommy John surgery in 2023 and missed nearly three full seasons, is seemingly getting better the deeper he goes in his first full big league season. The Nationals’ 2020 first-round pick says he’s learned to trust his stuff and attack hitters in the zone, while leaning on his defense when needed.

Butera said last week that they won’t cap Cavalli with any innings limits despite the injury history and Cavalli passing new personal benchmarks.

“To be able to remain healthy all year and be able to make this many starts and learn from each start and make adjustments between outings,” Butera said, “when you’re able to do that, he’s just picking up more and more experience from each previous outing. … What we saw today is a great example of that.”

Cubs starter Kevin Gausman matched Cavalli early, retiring the first 10 Nationals he faced in order. Abimelec Ortiz then worked an eight-pitch at-bat and delivered a single for Washington’s first hit in the fourth inning. Two pitches later, Ortiz scored on a Dylan Crews RBI double.

The Nationals blew the game open with a five-run fifth inning, highlighted by Ortiz’s three-run homer to right-center. Ortiz is up to four home runs and eight RBIs in 10 games since being recalled on Aug. 3 to fill the void after Luis García Jr. was dealt to the Yankees. Daylen Lile’s RBI single gave the Nationals a 6-0 lead and ended Gausman’s outing with two outs in the fifth.

Clayton Beeter pitched a scoreless ninth inning to preserve the shutout.