Cavalli continues second-half surge with 8 K's vs. Dodgers

LOS ANGELES -- Every rotation undergoing a ground-up rebuild eventually needs an anchor -- a pitcher who doesn't just eat innings, but gives a young team a chance to win every time out.

For the Nationals, Cade Cavalli is increasingly looking like that anchor.

Pitching Saturday night at Dodger Stadium, six days after a comebacker off his right leg cut his previous start short, Cavalli showed no lingering effects and logged six strong innings with eight strikeouts in the Nationals’ 6-5 loss to the Dodgers.

While the performance kept Cavalli atop the National League leaderboard in second-half strikeouts with 75, what stood out most was how he steadied himself after the opening frame.

In the bottom of the first, a defensive miscommunication on what would have been an inning-ending double-play ball saw Cavalli run into first baseman Abimelec Ortiz covering the bag. That led to two Dodgers runs thanks to back-to-back RBI singles from Teoscar Hernández and Hunter Feduccia. Rather than letting the inning compound, Cavalli took ownership and recalibrated, holding Los Angeles to just one hit over his final five frames.

"That's 100 percent on me," Cavalli said of the first-inning collision. "I should have said 'I got it, I got it.' I just assumed, and there's an issue when you assume. That's my fault. It's something we can learn from, something I can for sure learn from and communicate better."

That self-reflection did not go unnoticed in the dugout.

"He's done a really good job of just stopping that momentum and not letting it continue to roll south," manager Blake Butera said. "I think that comes from having gone through it, staying healthy like he has this year, and being able to go out there every fifth day to learn. He's done a nice job with that mindset."

As Cavalli locked down the Dodgers, Washington’s offense responded in the middle innings. José Tena put the Nationals on the board with a sacrifice fly in the second. Keibert Ruiz hit an RBI single in the fourth, and Dylan Crews followed with an RBI double to put Washington ahead 3-2. Daylen Lile added insurance in the seventh on an RBI double of his own to stretch the lead to 4-2.

Yet, as has so often been the case for Washington late in the season, a strong start and a late offensive push weren't enough to secure a victory.

The lead vanished in the bottom of the seventh when reliever Clayton Beeter issued a walk and a single before Tommy Edman turned on a 2-1 slider for a decisive three-run home run.

The sequence highlighted an ongoing challenge for Washington’s bullpen: free passes setting up catastrophic damage.

"When we look at run-scoring, a lot of times it's hard to have multiple hits in an inning," Butera said. “It usually needs some walks mixed in there, and then when you get guys on base, the home run ... it killed us tonight, of course, and it feels like that's been the theme."

For Beeter, who has struggled with command down the stretch, Butera noted that addressing the inconsistency remains a priority for the coaching staff.

“I think he's going to be able to get the command better,” Butera said. “Whether it's a mentality piece, that's the part that we have to figure out."

In the clubhouse postgame, Beeter was candid about the difficulty of digesting the outing.​

"It's hard to do. It sucks doing what I did out there tonight," Beeter said. "The guys in here are really, really special and they make sure they let me know how much they believe in me. I try to put my faith in God and just trust that His plan is the right one."

Despite the setback, For the second straight night, the Nationals mounted a late threat in the ninth inning against Los Angeles' bullpen. James Wood sparked a two-out rally with a single, Lile drove him in to narrow the score to 6-5, and Andrés Chaparro doubled to put the go-ahead runs in scoring position before Tanner Scott struck out CJ Abrams to end the game.

For a young clubhouse, navigating tight contests and turning close losses into wins remains the final hurdle.

"It's hard," Crews said of the emotional toll of late-game losses. "We work our tails off. ... It's just something that's kind of happened right now and we've got to figure some things out. But we have full faith in all these guys here. We're going to get through it, fight, and come out the better side of this."