After Curtis Mead was traded, a series-clinching win over the Diamondbacks restored the good vibes at Nationals Park.
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After another series victory for the Washington Nationals — this one over the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team they are chasing in the wild-card standings — the team blasted carols and gathered around a tree for its annual Christmas in July party.
The 10-7 win was important — it puts the Nationals within one game of the Diamondbacks. James Wood and CJ Abrams each hit two home runs, Wood reaching the 30-homer mark for the second season in a row and Abrams hitting his 26th and 27th to break the Washington single-season record for shortstops.
Brady House, who was recalled late Saturday night and didn’t get an ounce of sleep before a 5 a.m. flight, notched two doubles in his return to Nationals Park. Dylan Crews, who is starting to find his stride, finished with three hits. And after Miles Mikolas went just four innings, the bullpen did enough to keep Washington in the game, albeit with some typical late drama.
“They’re a really good team,” Wood said. “We know they are in the hunt as well. Especially after dropping the first game, being able to come back and win back-to-back games is big.”
All of that was worthy of the holiday-themed festivities, especially after the Nationals traded clubhouse favorite Curtis Mead to the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night for 24-year-old starter Connelly Early. But this year, more than any year since 2019, Washington has plenty of reasons to be merry.
These Nationals are in the hunt. They have the “it factor,” president of baseball operations Paul Toboni said Sunday morning, and he plans to try to get them the pieces to help them this year and, perhaps more importantly, beyond. Even though they lost Mead, who has 17 home runs this season, they maintained their next-man-up mentality and found a way to get it done.
“Mead, that’s our guy,” Abrams said. “I hate to see him go, but we keep going. We have a tight group. So we are going to just keep getting tighter and tighter.”
Part of what makes the Nationals so tight, Manager Blake Butera remarked, is their lack of ego. A player is just as happy for his teammate’s success as he is for his own. They have internal competitions — Luis García Jr. and Keibert Ruiz are trying to compile the most walks, and Abrams and Woods are battling in nearly every offensive category — but those are for motivation and trash talk, with no prizes involved.
“They just believe in one another,” Butera said. “No one feels like they need to be the guy. When you have that mentality, it takes some pressure off yourself and off the others around you and just feel like you pass it back, and the next guy is going to get the job done.”
That was especially important Sunday, when Mikolas put the Nationals in 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 holes. They escaped the first two on an RBI single from Jacob Young and a solo shot from Abrams.
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Butera told Abrams that it might have been the most impressive home run he’s seen him hit. After swinging through two curveballs, he got underneath a third one that was below the zone and on the outer part of the plate.
“He was like, ‘I don’t know how I did that,’” Butera said of their conversation. “He was actually mad at himself for swinging at the two pitches prior. That’s just CJ. He has his expectations.”
Arizona scored another run in the fifth off Riley Cornelio to extend the lead to 4-2. But this Washington offense, as it has done so often the season, promptly took over. After a leadoff walk by Nasim Nuñez, Wood crushed a curveball 430 feet to dead center to tie the game. After a single from Daylen Lile, Abrams took a low changeup deep to make it 6-4.
The Nationals added three runs in the seventh inning to pad their lead, with RBI doubles from House and Young and an RBI single from García.
“Just trying to do the same thing that I was doing down there,” House said of his success in his first game back. “Just ultimately from a hitting standpoint, just trying to get on base and generally doing some type of damage, hitting the ball hard.”
After the Diamondbacks got one back in the eighth — the first run Tom Cosgrove has allowed this year — Wood put an exclamation point on his day with a 418-foot homer to left-center.
The Nationals’ bullpen, though, almost blew the game once again. Coming in for the ninth with a 10-5 lead, Matt Krook faced three batters and walked them all, with the last ball coming on a pitch clock violation.
That forced Butera to go to Clayton Beeter, who is back to being Washington’s default closer. He gave up two runs and re-loaded the bases but did enough to maintain the win.
On Monday, former Washington hero Max Scherzer will make his return from the injured list for the Toronto Blue Jays in D.C. But for Sunday night, the Nationals got to come together as a team to toast another step in the right direction.
“I think we all got each other’s back and we all support each other,” Wood said. “It’s easy to set your pride aside in here.”
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