MIAMI -- As Nationals left-hander Foster Griffin continued to emerge as the stabilizing force in Washington’s rotation on Friday night at loanDepot park, the contrast between Griffin and the rest of the club’s starting staff became harder to ignore.
Griffin delivered one of his best outings of the still-young season in the Nationals’ 3-2 win over the Marlins, matching a career high with seven innings while setting a new personal best with nine strikeouts, lowering his ERA to 2.12. The victory moved Washington to 19-20, just one game below .500.
Griffin entered Friday with a team-leading 1.4 WAR; meanwhile, the rest of Washington’s rotation had combined for a negative-0.5 WAR and a 6.01 ERA. His four quality starts -- coming in his past four starts -- also lead the team, two more than the only other starter with any quality starts (Cade Cavalli, two).
The Nationals signed Griffin to a one-year, $5.5 million deal with up to $1 million in incentives during the offseason. Through the first six weeks of the season, that investment has looked increasingly valuable for the club.
Griffin, trusted to navigate the Marlins lineup three times, threw 103 pitches while continuing a stretch of consistency that has quickly earned the confidence of manager Blake Butera.
That growing trust was evident in the seventh inning. After throwing 91 pitches through six frames, Griffin returned to the dugout knowing Butera was weighing whether to send him back out.
“He asked me if I was good. I said, ‘Yeah, especially if you need me to go get the lefty,’" Griffin said. "I knew [Joe Mack] was on deck, so I kind of felt like that's what he was getting at. And then [I] got the lefty out and he stayed in the dugout, and I was able to go get the next two guys as well, which I think was big for our ‘pen."
What has given Butera that confidence in his starter? His consistency.
“He's definitely earned our trust as a staff, and all of his teammates' trust as well," Butera said. "They love when he's on the mound also, and they were fired up to see him go back up there."
Griffin allowed two runs -- both in the first inning -- on four hits while utilizing his deep seven-pitch arsenal, leaning heavily on his cutter (37% of his pitches) throughout the outing. He threw his splitter just twice, both in the first, for good reason.
Miami’s first run came on a leadoff home run by Xavier Edwards, who connected on an elevated four-seam fastball. Otto Lopez doubled in the next at-bat, after Griffin had worked him up and away through the first four pitches before leaving an 81.5 mph splitter down and in.
The Marlins then cut the deficit to one when Kyle Stowers reached on a throwing error by first baseman Curtis Mead, allowing Lopez to score.
“Getting through that first inning was a grind,” said Griffin, who threw 25 pitches in the first frame. “But then from there, I kind of just had to tell myself to step on the gas pedal, get more aggressive, [I was] getting a little bit too nibbly in the corners, not being as aggressive as I usually am. So [I] kind of made that switch there after the first inning, and things got better.”
That adjustment showed during the rest of his outing, as Griffin got ahead in the count on seven of his strikeouts while also generating weak contact.
Griffin became the first Nationals pitcher to allow two extra-base hits before recording an out and still complete seven innings since Jordan Zimmermann did so against the Giants on Aug. 23, 2014. No Nationals starter has surrendered three extra-base hits before recording an out and still completed seven innings in the same game.
Entering Friday, Griffin had not allowed an earned run over his previous 14 innings, tied for the eighth-longest active streak in Major League Baseball, per the Elias Sports Bureau, and the fourth-longest in the National League.
Griffin had also held opponents to a .138 batting average with runners in scoring position this season (4-for-29) entering play Friday, a trend that continued as he repeatedly worked out of trouble against Miami.
But with experience ,Griffin has come to understand how quickly momentum can change, which has helped him in his first season back in MLB after he spent three years pitching for the NPB's Yomiuri Giants in Japan.
“This game will humble you pretty quickly," Griffin said. "If you let it, you start thinking you're too good for it. So you can't take your lows too seriously either -- there's gonna be days where you just don't have it, and you can't look too much into it either, right? If you have just bad days -- everyone has bad days at work. You have good days at work, too. So that's just kind of how I look at it.”