WASHINGTON -- Things can change in an instant in baseball. One day’s hero can be another day’s mistake-maker.
That was the case for Curtis Mead on Sunday, launching his second homer of the year less than 24 hours after he made a baserunning miscue that cost the Nationals a ninth-inning walk-off opportunity.
Mead’s fifth-inning dinger gave Washington the boost it needed, pulling ahead to a 3-0 lead it did not relinquish. The Nats’ first shutout win of the season enabled the club to avoid its second series sweep of the season.
“It was special, just to kind of give us a little bit more wiggle-room, definitely important,” Mead said. “[The win] was needed. I think the vibe of the clubhouse was great. It’s obviously a tough pill to swallow, but I feel like the energy today was great. So I think we all felt pretty good about going out there and playing the game.”
Mead had owned up to his mistake in Saturday night’s 12-inning loss -- one of a handful of miscues that plagued the Nationals on the basepaths and in the field over the three-game series vs. the Giants -- when he failed to slide at third base and was tagged out just after the game-tying run scored.
But as Mead showed on Sunday afternoon, and as many fans and players know, the best way to show growth is in how one responds to those opportunities to learn.
“Huge bounceback from Curtis, really happy for him, proud of him,” manager Blake Butera said. “We had some good conversations today about, obviously, last night’s game and some of the mistakes we made -- not just Curtis but as a group -- and to see them learn from [them], flush them and be ready to go today? Yeah, happy, happy for Curtis, huge home run he hit there.”
It's something the Nationals’ staff is pushing this season: Turning mistakes into lessons. Washington is focused on development at all levels, even in the Majors. With one of baseball’s youngest (and more inexperienced) teams, every play -- good and bad -- presents an opportunity to learn.
Every day, the Nats gather for an additional pregame meeting beyond the typical hitters and catchers/pitchers meetings. This one is different. This meeting is to break down the previous day’s good (and bad). Some days the group gathers for just 10 minutes. Some days, like Sunday, those meetings take a little longer.
“It’s all in the best interest of the team and learning,” Mead said. “So I think that they address it really well in terms of, it’s not necessarily just pointing out the negatives. We also talked about a lot of positives from last night as well. So I felt like after the meeting we’d kind of squished the negatives and talked about the positives, and I felt like everyone left the meeting in a really good mindset, which was nice.”
The learning process extends beyond individual plays. Washington is relying on versatility and willingness to grow and adapt. Just look at its pitching approach on Sunday: PJ Poulin (two-thirds of an inning) opened the game vs. the top of the lineup, before starter Miles Mikolas -- making his 30th career “relief” appearance -- took on the role of innings-eater (four innings). Then, they called on rookie Andrew Alvarez, who arrived on a 5 a.m. flight from Triple-A Rochester, to close out the final 4 1/3 innings and earn the win.
For Poulin, it was his third call to open -- and all three have been fairly successful. For Mikolas, it was his first scoreless outing of the season -- a big win for the veteran who entered the day with an 11.49 ERA. For Alvarez, it was a chance to show that his successful September callup last year was no fluke, and that he’s made changes that make him all the more successful -- and a chance to earn his first big league win of the season before being sent back to Triple-A postgame.
“Just the way [Andrew] pitched, the way he cruised, he deserved to be out there to finish that game,” Butera said. “He was in total control from when he came into the game in the fifth.”
Though it wasn’t perfect baseball, it was a step in the right direction for the Nationals.
“It’s huge,” Butera said. “Can’t thank our players enough and our coaches enough [for] one, communicating the different roles that our guys might seem themselves in this year, and secondly, our players taking it and running with it, not having any excuses and being ready to go whenever their name’s called. When they do what they did today, it’s just pretty amazing.”