WASHINGTON -- The Nationals strategized a bullpen game on Sunday to sweep the Reds. That wasn’t Washington's game plan in the series opener against the Cubs on Tuesday at Nationals Park, but the club had to rely on its relievers more than intended.
Starting right-hander Jake Irvin threw 88 pitches in just 3 1/3 innings, prompting an early call to the ‘pen. The Nationals utilized four relievers -- including Miles Mikolas taking a ride in the bullpen cart.
“Frustrating, for sure,” Irvin said after the 8-6 defeat. “Any time you come out with a loss, it stinks.”
The Nats are calling up No. 8 prospect Jackson Kent from Triple-A Rochester to make his Major League debut and start on Wednesday night. The 23-year-old left-hander is 9-4 with a 3.72 ERA in 20 starts between Triple-A and Double-A this season. The Nationals selected Kent in the fourth round of the 2024 Draft out of Arizona.
No corresponding move was announced. Mikolas, however, was saying goodbye to teammates in the clubhouse after the game.
Butera said of Kent, “Obviously, what he’s done has jumped off the page to a lot of people. I’m excited to see him get an opportunity up here tomorrow.”
Irvin allowed five runs on four hits and two walks. He struck out four and allowed a Statcast-projected 437-foot upper-deck blast by Pete Crow-Armstrong in a nine-pitch at-bat. Irvin threw his four-seam fastball for nearly half of his pitches, in addition to his sweeper (19%), sinker (17%), curveball (8%), changeup (6%) and cutter (6%).
“[The Cubs] are a good offense and put together good at-bats,” said Irvin. “But at the end of the day, I think when breaking ball shapes and the consistency of the breaking ball isn’t there, it makes the at-bats a little bit easier for them. The pitches were pretty dang good, but when you only have to honor a fastball, it’s a little bit different.”
Irvin’s pitch count was the most thrown by a Nationals pitcher in an outing of fewer than four innings since MacKenzie Gore threw 102 pitches in 3 2/3 on May 16, 2025, against the Orioles.
Irvin has run into inflated pitch counts this season. On May 13, he threw 86 pitches in three innings at Cincinnati (four hits, six runs, four walks, four strikeouts). On April 4, Irvin delivered 85 pitches across four frames against the Dodgers (eight hits, six runs, two walks, four strikeouts).
His strongest outing of the season was unfortunately halted by injury. Irvin threw five hitless innings in Atlanta on May 23 when he exited the game due to what turned out to be a right shoulder strain. He was on the IL from May 24 to July 30, and has made three starts since his return.
“I think there's been a lot of times where he's been able to throw pretty similarly to the way he did tonight and limit damage a little bit better and be a little more efficient with his pitches,” manager Blake Butera said. “But credit the Cubs’ lineup. They didn't chase. Every pitch that was just off the plate, it felt like they took for a ball. They didn't help his cause by any means, and that wore on Jake, of course. He had to throw a ton of pitches.”
The Nationals were cognizant of how they utilized their bullpen ahead of the upcoming stretch of games. Tom Cosgrove (two-thirds of an inning), Max Kranick (one inning), Orlando Ribalta (one inning) and Mikolas (three innings) covered the innings on Tuesday.