SAN DIEGO – Riley Cornelio had pitched three perfect innings as the starter in a bullpen game against the Padres. Yet the rookie right-hander was visibly upset after his best Major League game to date. Amid a quiet Nationals clubhouse, Cornelio stated the sentiments felt by his teammates.
“We show up every day and we work really hard,” Cornelio said. “The results obviously have been frustrating, but it’s not from a lack of trying. I’ll tell you that.”
The Nationals set the Major League record for the most blown saves in a single season in a deflating 5-4 loss to the Padres. In spite of leading 4-1 in top of the eighth inning, they blew their 38th save opportunity in the bottom of the frame.
The mark for most blown saves had been held by the 2024 White Sox (37). Saves became a statistic in 1969.
“Failures in life, we can either look at and put our head down and accept it, or we can face it head on and take something from it and learn from it,” said manager Blake Butera. “That’s what I’m hoping we do.”
The Nationals held a three-run lead after Cornelio, Zak Kent and Yovanny Cruz held the Padres scoreless and Clayton Beeter allowed one run in the seventh. But rookie Jared Simpson opened the eighth inning with three consecutive walks to Xander Bogaerts, Freddy Fermin and Fernando Tatis Jr. on 18 pitches.
“Obviously, not acceptable," said Simpson. “I can’t be walking three guys. I need to reset after the first guy instead of just keep doing the same thing.”
Butera turned to another rookie southpaw in Erik Tolman with the bases loaded and no outs. The Nats ideal situation was going with Tolman for a clean ninth inning, but the trio of walks necessitated an earlier call to the ‘pen.
Tolman gave up a sacrifice fly to Austin Hays to make it a 4-2 game. He then battled Manny Machado in an eight-pitch at-bat. Tolman missed a bouncing 94.5 mph ground ball to the mound that traveled into center field for a game-tying, two-run single.
“I actually thought I was going to get that,” Tolman said. “Obviously, I didn’t. And my depth perception, I didn’t take into account the drop of the ball and I just missed it. Honestly, that’s something I could control.”
Two outs later, Luis Campusano hit the go-ahead fly ball single to right field. Machado scored as the Wild Card-hunting Padres brought a home crowd of 42,681 to their feet.
“First off, you’ve got to throw strikes,” said Butera. “Secondly, there's going to be intense moments like this. Anytime you have a lead and you put one guy on base, the crowd's going to start getting into it, and understanding that that is the case in the seventh, eighth, ninth inning on the road. These guys need to understand, you go batter to batter, pitch to pitch even, and the ability to stop the momentum and refocus and get back in the zone and have confidence is everything.”
The Nationals bullpen is a close-knit group, not only from their time together in the big leagues, but from the years many of them spent together developing in the farm system. Cornelio’s postgame reaction exemplified that bond – if one reliever goes through it, they go through it as a unit.
“Losing sucks at the end of the day,” said Tolman. “You want to do whatever you can do to get back to winning. So whether it starts in the weight room, the training room, it’s everything building up to games. I look around and lots of guys in this locker room work their tail off to win games, and sometimes it just doesn’t happen.”