Best of times, worst of times for Washington Nationals in chaotic Coors Field win

A perfect Washington Nationals win almost turned into an all time disaster as the bullpen nearly blew a 10 run lead

It was the best of times for the Washington Nationals. James Wood and Dylan Crews both went three for five with four RBI’s. It was the first time in their young careers that both outfielders homered in the same game.

Dylan Crews’ 10 total bases were more than he had in the rest of the season combined, coming into the game with just 8 singles. Maybe facing former Tennessee Volunteer Chase Dollander reminded him of his LSU days.

MacKenzie Gore was also utterly dominant today. For the second time this season, Gore struck out 13 batters. He now leads all of baseball with 45 strikeouts in 29 innings.

All of the young stars showed out, so you would assume it would be an amazing day to be a Nationals fan. Well it was for the first six and a half innings. I was prepared to right a story about how the Nats couldn’t have asked for a better script. The young guys were amazing and one of the struggling vets in Josh Bell went deep too. So what changed?

Well, the worst of times happened when the Nationals bullpen entered the game. In an all too familiar pattern, Lucas Sims and Colin Poche’s hands were all over the scene of the crime.

Despite only getting two outs between them, Sims and Poche gave up six runs. Their ERA’s are now up to a ghastly 15.26 and 19.29 between the pair. As is often the case, neither could consistently find the zone.

Sims came in and walked a guy and hit batters. Sims has been wild for most of his career, so his control letting him down this season isn’t a massive shocker. However, Poche had a pretty average 8.5 BB% last season, so to see him walking 32.3% of batters is a shock.

The 7th inning was just a total meltdown, where the Nats allowed 8 runs. While the pitching was bad, the defense did not do them any favors. Defensive replacement Alex Call misplayed a ball that turned into a triple. Also, Nasim Nunez tried a flip to second with two outs instead of taking the easy out at first. He did not get the flip to Luis Garcia Jr. in time and everyone was safe.

While Jose A Ferrer did his job in the 8th, we were in for a bumpy ride in the 9th after Kyle Finnegan issued a leadoff walk. He got two outs before allowing a triple to Mickey Moniak to bring the tying run within 90 feet of home plate and turning a 12-2 lead into a narrow 12-11 margin. However, Finnegan locked in and got Jordan Beck to strike out to end the ballgame.

I should be in here talking about nothing but positives, and I do not want those to get overshadowed. Dylan Crews had a career day, MacKenzie Gore struck out 13, and guys like Luis Garcia Jr. and Josh Bell showed a lot of life at the plate.

However, this awful bullpen overshadowed a lot of that. Simply put, Mike Rizzo did not do a good enough job building this unit and now he is going to have to rebuild on the fly. All three of his bullpen additions have ERA’s in the double digits. The league worst 7.79 bullpen ERA honestly feels like a low number.

It was the best of times and the worst of times for the Washington Nationals. It is important to take the good with the bad in what was a wild game at Coors Field, a stadium that has has seen plenty of thrillers over the years.