Gray Takes Petco:
Josiah Gray quit 9 hits (2 of them home runs) and a season-high 6 made runs in 5 innings on the mound the last time out, prior to dealing with the San Diego Padres on the roadway in Petco Park on Saturday. His supervisor said after Gray’s 15th start of the season he hoped it would be a knowing chance for the 25-year-old right-hander, who completed the getaway in the country’s capital with a 3.64 AGE (up from 3.19 entering into the start), a 4.88 FIP, (up from a 4.77 FIP prior to he took the mound), and .248/.332/.418 line versus (up from .237/.325/.389).
“I hope Josiah learns from it today, and comes back out there, and I know that he’s going to come out there and compete in five days from now,” Davey Martinez said after Gray’s rough start.
“Today was a day he just couldn’t finish hitters off, and he got beat by it. So, he’ll come back out in five days, but his stuff was good.”
Gray took the mound in Petco with a 1-0 lead, thanks to a solo shot by Jeimer Candelario in the top of the very first, and he had a 2-0 lead when he came out for the 2nd. Gray installed 5 scoreless innings versus the Padres on 93 overall pitches, and he returned out for the bottom of the 6th, with 4 hits and 3 strolls enabled, and he strolled the very first batter he dealt with, on his 98th pitch.
He turned up Jake Cronenworth with his 99th pitch for out No. 1, however it was the last out he taped in the getaway as his supervisor went to the ‘pen…
Josiah Gray’s Line: 5.1 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 4 BB, 6 Ks, 99 P, 58 S, 4/3 GO/FO.
Gray produced 13 swinging strikes in the getaway, expanded over the 6th pitches taped by Baseball Savant, and he completed the night with 15 called strikes (7 on his slider, 5 on his sinker, 2 on his curve, and one on his four-seam fastball).
“The story tonight, to me, is Josiah,” Martinez said after the Nationals hung on for a 2-0 win, night things up in the three-game set.
“[Gray] battled through. His pitch count was a little bit high, but he got through it. Tough lineup, and we were able to get him the win.”
While he wasn’t especially effective, Gray fought out of the problem he discovered himself in and created another strong out which satisfied his supervisor.
“This is something that we talked about and something that he learned from last year, about just staying in the moment, get to that next pitch,” Martinez explained. “He did it really well tonight. He got in a little bit of a jam here and there, but he was able to get out of it making good pitches. He’s learned, he’s learned a lot. He knows he can compete up here, he knows he can win games up here, so he’s done really well.”
“I limited the damage,” Gray said, as estimated by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman. “Each walk that I gave up, kind of stranded the guy where they were, didn’t let it pile up. They were, I guess you can say, kind of strategic. They got on base, but I was able to strand them.”
SECRET MINUTES:
• In the consequences of last night’s deflating 13-3 loss, Nationals’ skipper Davey Martinez informed press reporters his club needed to put the video game behind them and attempt to go 1-0 in the second of 3 with San Diego’s Padres in Petco.
“We got to come back tomorrow and try to score first and give Josiah [Gray] a lead,” the sixth-year supervisor said.
Jeimer Candelario got all of a center-cut, 92.9 miles per hour fastball from Friars’ starter Matt Waldron and did simply that, striking his 9th home run of the season 395 feet to best field with 2 outs in the top of the very first, offering Gray a 1-0 cause deal with prior to he took the mound.
• Lane Thomas struck the 2nd solo shot off the Padres’ righty in the top of the 2nd, with a 396-foot, one-out blast for his 13th HR of the year. Thomas got on a first-pitch heating unit up and away and strike it out to make it a 2-0 video game in the Nationals’ favor.
Nats’ skipper Davey Martinez talked after the win about Thomas and Candelario supplying the offense the club required.
“Big, big,” he said of the home runs. “I can’t say enough about Lane, and I keep saying this, if he keeps doing what he’s doing, to me he’s an All-Star. He really is. He’s playing really well in the field, he’s knocking in big runs, hitting home runs for us, and Jeimer has just been steady, hitting the ball and playing good defense for us as well. Those two guys, those two guys get going and hit some home runs, we’ll score some runs.”
LIKEWISE THIS:
BULLPEN ACTION:
Mason Thompson rounded off the 6th, and went back to the mound with a scoreless home-half of the seventh to keep it a 2-0 video game in the Nationals’ favor. 1 1⁄3 scoreless on 24 pitches.
Kyle Finnegan got the 8th, and set out 2 of the 3 batters he dealt with in a 16-pitch frame.
Hunter Harvey attempted to make the 2-0 lead hold up in the ninth, and the right-hander made the save with a fast, 12-pitch, eight-strike, 1-2-3 frame.
“That, was a good one,” Davey Martinez said after the win. “Josiah gave us the five innings-plus that we needed. Mason comes in, and shuts the door in a big inning right there, and Finnegan and Harvey finish it off with great stuff.”
BACK PAGE – Chad Kuhl DFA’d:
Before the 2nd video game of 3 with the Padres the other day, the Nationals revealed their latest in a string of lineup relocations, designating veteran Chad Kuhl for project, after the right-hander quit 4 hits, a walk, struck a batter, and gave up 4 made runs in an awful, 30-pitch frame in Washington’s 13-3 loss in San Diego.
“His stuff is good,” supervisor Davey Martinez said on Friday night, “simply he falls back, and after that he’s got to make pitches — his misses out on are almost right down the middle of the plate.
“But we got to just talk to him about utilizing both sides of the plate,” he included.
“But his fastball was good. His sliders — he’s hanging a lot of sliders now, but the biggest thing is that he’s falling behind a lot.”
Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images
Kuhl, who started the season as a starter, however moved into the bullpen after missing out on time with an injury, completed the very first video game of the series in Petco Park with a 7.16 AGE, a 6.64 FIP, and a .308/.425/.492 line versus in 16 1⁄3 IP out of the bullpen, and the Nationals chose to make a modification, phoning Paolo Espino from Triple-A to take Kuhl’s location.
“The toughest part of my job is letting guys go when you start building these relationships with them,” Martinez said in his pregame presser on Saturday.
“It’s hard. I know he gave it his all. It just didn’t work out.”
Martinez restated the reality it wasn’t Kuhl’s things, however his command that was the issue.
“His stuff is good. I look back at yesterday, and he was throwing 99 [MPH]. Obviously, he’s got a lot going on. But I just hope for his sake, it works out and he gets picked up by another team and he’s pitching again. Unbelievable person. His whole family is. He was here, he gave everything he had and I wish him all the best.”
If his things is still good, what wasn’t working for Kuhl?
“I think he couldn’t slow himself down at times,” Martinez said.
“And then when he got overwhelmed when guys got on base and really sped up a lot. But his stuff was good, he didn’t command his slider. For me, he was behind quite a bit on hitters. So if he can get the ball in the strike zone he’s going to be okay, and we worked really hard to try to get him there, it just didn’t happen.”
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