Washington Nationals news & notes: Nats & Mets battle till end in opener; MacKenzie Gore vs NY + more…

Notes and quotes on the Nationals’ series opener with the Mets in the nation’s capital…

QUICK RECAP – SEE SAW BATTLES ENDS WITH BACKWARDS K:

New York Mets’ reliever Jake Diekman gave up a go-ahead, two-run home run in the ninth inning of Sunday’s series finale with the Arizona Diamondbacks in Citi Field, in what was in the end NY’s, “… major league-worst sixth defeat after holding a lead after eight innings,” and in a see-saw battle against the Washington Nationals in the nation’s capital last night they came close to suffering their seventh.

Diekman came on and saved the visitors this time, after Adam Ottavino gave up a leadoff walk to Luis García, Jr., hit Keibert Ruiz, and surrendered back-to-back, one-out, RBI singles by Jesse Winker and Ildemaro Vargas, which trimmed an 8-4 lead down to 8-6. Diekman got the ball at that point, surrendering a sac fly by Joey Meneses, 8-7, with two outs, before the Nats’ rookie catcher, Drew Millas, K’d looking on an 0-2 fastball low in the zone for out No. 3.

Winker drove in a run with a single in the Nationals’ second, after the Mets jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the inning, and it was 3-1 in the visitor’s favor when Nick Senzel scored on a grounder off Vargas’s bat, 3-2, and Joey Gallo hit two-run home run, putting the home team up 4-3 after four.

The lead didn’t last long, with Harrison Bader’s sac fly in the fifth tying things up before a pair of hits by Jose Iglesias (RBI single) and Luis Torrens (2-run double) made it 7-4 Mets.

Winker walked to force in a run in the bottom of the fifth, then Starling Marte responded in the top of the sixth with an RBI single, 8-5 NY, setting up the drama which unfolded later in the ninth.

“We had a couple opportunities, but just fell a little short,” manager Davey Martinez said after the loss.

“But the boys battled. I thought we hit the ball really well. We did. We lined out a few times.

“But overall I thought our bats were good today.”

“We were one base hit away from winning that ballgame,” he added later in his post game presser.

GORE’S NIGHT:

MacKenzie Gore struck out 10 of the 22 batters he faced last week in Atlanta’s Truist Park, without walking a batter in a 97-pitch, 63-pitch outing in which he went 5+ innings, with a total of 13 swinging and 11 called strikes.

“I thought we went at guys,” Gore said in his post-start comments, as quoted by MASN’s Bobby Blanco.

“I felt off-speed was good. So I thought we just had a good game plan and executed it well enough and got some strikeouts.”

His 10 Ks were one shy of the previous season-high for the lefty this year (11 Ks on 4/13).

“It’s always good to strike a lot of guys out and, obviously, not walking anybody,” the starter said. “Ten Ks is always great.”

Manager Davey Martinez talked after the start about Gore and catcher Keibert Ruiz (and the Pitching Coach Jim Hickey) working together increasingly well.

“We always talk about [how] MacKenzie’s stuff is really good,” Martinez explained.

“They’re utilizing his fastball, but they’re also mixing in the breaking balls when they need to, and they’re being effective, and they’re getting better at being efficient.

“And that’s what I love about them. Hickey talks about that every day with these guys.

“Understanding what you can do in certain situations, they’re buying in and they’re doing well.”

Gore gave up seven hits, four walks, and six earned runs in 4 ¹⁄₃ innings on Monday night, with one home run allowed, and just two Ks from the 24 batters he faced, with a total of eight swinging and nine called strikes, and 24 of his 92 pitches fouled off, before he was done for the night, having surrendered a one-out walk and single in the fifth (along with a wild pitch), with the walk coming into score on a sac fly once Dylan Floro took over.

“For me, it didn’t look like he was in-sync,” Martinez said in assessing Gore’s outing.

“It looked like his slider was short. He had a lot of pitches. They fouled a lot of pitches off, so 4 ¹⁄₃ innings with 92 pitches, that’s a lot, so we had to get him out of there.”

The six earned runs allowed were a season-high for Gore, so how had he avoided a blow-up to this point this year?

“The ability to come back and make pitches, really make pitches, not fall behind, get ahead,” Martinez said.

“Today when the situation arose he fell behind. Like I said, they fouled a lot of balls off early.”

“It was frustrating one,” Gore said after his start. “I wasn’t very good. That’s really all I’ve got. Just not a good one.”

“I just didn’t execute,” he added.

“It was just not good. I didn’t execute well, really, throughout the outing. I wasn’t able to make pitches when I needed to, to kind of get out of traffic.

“As frustrating as it is, the sun’s going to come up tomorrow, and we’ll get another one in five days. But this one’s pretty frustrating.”

RILEY ADAMS TO TRIPLE-A:

Before the series finale in Cleveland, the Nationals optioned catcher Riley Adams to Triple-A Rochester, with Drew Millas coming up to back up No. 1 backstop Keibert Ruiz.

“Millas is playing really well,” manager Davey Martinez told reporters, “but we kind of want to get Riley Adams going a little bit. Get him some at-bats and get him back going. He’s been taking a lot — too many fastballs. And we just want to give him some everyday at-bats and get him going. The other thing too is I kind of want him to start playing a little bit of first base as well, so he can do multiple things when he’s up here.”

Adams, 27, started in 11 games between April 9th-24th, with a .270/.333/.460 line at the plate over that stretch, during which Ruiz was on the IL, but since Ruiz returned, the No. 2 catcher for the Nats has a .161/.257/.194 in the 11 starts he’s had.

“It’s a timing thing,” Martinez said in diagnosing Adams’ struggles at the plate.

“He’s just got to get himself ready earlier. It’s hard to do when you’re not playing every day. So getting him at-bats every day, and getting him locked in again, definitely will help him. Our plan is to get him down there, get him to play every day, get as many at-bats as possible and see if we can get him locked in again.”

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Millas, 26, joins the Nationals for the third time this season, having put up a .308/.353/.505 line with six doubles, five home runs, 22 RBIs, eight walks, five stolen bases, and 11 runs scored in 30 games for the Triple-A Red Wings.

“Our plan — he’s done really well,” the Nats’ skipper said. “My plan is to catch him maybe 2-3 times a week, on days where we can DH Keibert Ruiz, and possibly maybe even DH Millas so he can get his at-bats as well. We’ll see how he does. I plan on putting him in either tomorrow or the next day just to get his feet wet, but we’ll see how he handles it.”

Millas went 0 for 4 with a walk and a K in the series opener with the Mets, striking out on an 0-2 fastball low in the zone for the final out of the game with the tying run on third, and the potential winning run on first.

“I think he got fooled,” Martinez said of the final pitch of the game. “I’ll have to look at it real closely, but he had his first pitch, he had a really good swing at it, and then he chased a ball up and I think he froze on that last pitch.”

JOSIAH GRAY UPDATE:

Josiah Gray, on the IL since April 4th with a right elbow/forearm flexor strain, but if all goes well in his next live bullpen, the Nationals could send the 26-year-old right-hander out for a rehab assignment in the near future.

“Josiah, he’ll throw tomorrow, a live, and we’ll see how he comes out of that,” Martinez said when asked for an update before last night’s game.

“If everything goes well, yeah,” the Nats’ skipper added, “I’d love to send him out on a rehab assignment.”

The plan for the live BP?

“It’s going to be trying to get him three, three ups, trying to get him around that 50-pitch mark.”

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