Washington plays “a complete game” in a 3-2 win over the Orioles to open the Beltway Series.
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Almost 40,000 fans came out to watch the Washington Nationals take on the Baltimore Orioles in the first Beltway Series matchup of the season on Friday. Or they came for the “Bad day to be a hot dog” hat giveaway at Nationals Park and to catch a glimpse at the new team dog, Natty, an 8-week-old service dog in training who made his debut on Friday night.
Either way, they were treated to a 3-2 Nationals win, collectively consumed more than 28,000 hot dogs and fawned countless times over the newest member of the team.
It was indeed a bad day to be a hot dog. But a very good day to be a Washington National.
“When you talk a complete game, I thought tonight was as well of a complete game as we’ve played,” Manager Blake Butera said.
Zack Littell hasn’t had the smoothest start to his tenure with the Nationals. He entered with an ERA of 6.94, but he had shown signs in his two previous appearances — when pitching after an opener — that things might be changing. This time, Butera opted to let the veteran go from the first pitch.
Littell didn’t let his manager down. He didn’t allow a hit the first time through the order, his fastball velocity jumping to the highest it’s been all season. And while the game remained scoreless, the hot dogs were being demolished left and right. After two innings, 13,706 had been consumed in the stadium.
In the top of the fourth, the Nationals ended the stalemate. CJ Abrams and Daylen Lile lined back-to-back first-pitch singles, and Abrams scored on Brady House’s sacrifice fly to give the Nationals a 1-0 lead.
Littell continued to roll, and so did the hot dogs off the conveyor belt. In the fifth inning, with Coby Mayo on first and two outs, Butera considered bringing in a reliever to face left-handed hitter Gunnar Henderson. He decided, though, to leave Littell in to face the lineup a third time — even if the analytics, he noted, told him otherwise. He has seen how hard Littell has worked to get back on track and knew it would be a major confidence boost.
“Sometimes the human part of this matters,” Butera said.
And although Henderson did line a double to right, a stellar throw from James Wood kept Mayo from scoring. Littell then got Taylor Ward to ground out to third, securing five scoreless innings and giving himself a confidence boost in the process.
“It meant a lot, and I told Blake that afterwards,” Littell said of Butera’s decision to leave him in the game. “It was nice to prove to myself that I can go out there and get guys out in big spots.”
The stadium cheered as the right-hander walked off the mound, an announcement that there had been enough hot dogs eaten to unlock an extended happy hour only adding to their glee.
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Of course, there would be more runs — and hot dogs — to come. In the sixth, Curtis Mead earned a leadoff walk, and Lile got under a low knuckle-curveball for a two-run homer, his third hit of the day and his fourth long ball in as many games. The Nationals went up 3-0. The hot dog counter went up to 21,503.
Andrew Alvarez, brought up earlier Friday from Class AAA Rochester, was smooth, striking out five of the 13 batters he faced. His accuracy was certainly better than the Racing Presidents, who threw out hot dogs during the seventh-inning stretch, dubbed “Full glizzy chaos.”
Alvarez rolled through the sixth, seventh and eighth, working his way around traffic by leaning on both of his breaking balls. Thirty of his 48 pitches were sliders or curveballs, and they garnered seven swinging strikes.
Butera wanted to give Alvarez a chance to finish the game, but things got away from him in the ninth. After Samuel Basallo hit a leadoff single and Tyler O’Neill walked on four pitches, Butera pulled Alvarez for Gus Varland, who immediately walked Leody Taveras to load the bases. Varland got Mayo swinging on three pitches, but Jeremiah Jackson followed with a sacrifice fly to get the Orioles on the board.
Butera again made a change, bringing in Richard Lovelady to face Henderson. He singled in a run to make it 3-2, and Ward walked to load the bases.
Lovelady reset. Then, with two strikes, he caught Adley Rutschman by surprise, getting him swinging on his sweeper to end the game.
“Obviously didn’t go the way we had hoped in the ninth, but also understanding this is a really good team and to keep them scoreless, this lineup, for eight innings, is not easy,” Butera said. “I was really proud of Gus and Lovelady and what they were able to do there.”
As the night wound down, a cart of hot dogs was wheeled into the clubhouse. Littell hadn’t had a chance to partake in the festivities before he spoke with the media about his start, but the night, he noted, was still young. Staff members who participated in an internal hot dog eating competition during the game wondered out loud whether they could ever stomach one again.
José Tena had no such problems. He toasted to a Nationals win with a hot dog on his way out of the stadium.
It was win No. 22 for the season. And just one of 28,000 hot dogs eaten that night.
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