PHOENIX -- When the Nationals closed out the first half of the season by snapping a nine-game losing skid with a victory over the Braves last Sunday, manager Dave Martinez wanted the team to carry that momentum to Chase Field on Friday night.
Instead, the Nats were no-hit through 5 2/3 innings by D-backs right-hander Zac Gallen in a 10-1 loss. With only three hits on the evening, the Nationals tied their season mark for fewest in a game.
“It was disappointing,” Martinez said.
Prior to the series opener, Martinez had addressed the Nationals about the importance of scoring first. Washington is 22-17 when doing so, a drastic contrast from its 9-47 record when the opponent plates the first run.
Martinez had been encouraged watching the Nats take batting practice under the closed roof at Chase Field. The ball was traveling well, a positive sign.
“I thought that we were going to hit the ball well today,” Martinez said.
That didn’t translate into the game, though. Facing Gallen, who Martinez noted had an effective pitch mix and kept the ball down, Washington’s strong contact resulted in ground balls. Nelson Cruz and Maikel Franco connected on groundouts with exit velocities of 110 mph and 108 mph, respectively, for two of the Nats’ hardest-hit balls of the game.
“When we hit the balls hard, it’s on the ground,” Martinez said. “We can’t get the ball in the air. We’ve got to start driving the balls.”
This is a theme Martinez has noted in games in which the Nationals struggle at the plate.
“I think we’ve got to stay on the fastballs and be ready to hit [them], and kind of hit them more out front,” he said. “We’ve just to continue to work on that. We harp on it every day.”
The Nationals were able to take a sigh of relief when César Hernández broke up Gallen’s no-hit bid in the sixth inning. They plated one run in the ninth to avoid a shutout.
“As much as you try not to think about it, it’s in your head and you know he’s throwing a no-hitter,” Hernández said. “So you start swinging at pitches maybe you normally don’t swing at. You’re more aggressive because you want to break up the no-hitter. It definitely changed after that first base hit was made.”
Just as Sunday’s win against Atlanta produced valuable lessons to be learned and implemented, Friday’s loss to Arizona did the same. In this case, it starts early to avoid getting into a no-hit hole and having to play catch up with a double-digit deficit in the final frame.
“We haven’t done that often,” Martinez said of scoring first. “But we need to really focus on having good, quality at-bats, scoring first in the first couple of innings. And then see where it takes us from there.”