A 5-3 win over the Diamondbacks puts Washington two games behind Arizona in the wild-card race.
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When CJ Abrams is seeing the ball well, he has a sense of calm and confidence in the box. Rather than rushing or pressing, the Washington Nationals’ shortstop waits patiently for the right pitch to punish.
In the fourth inning against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday, Abrams let a ball and a strike go by, then fouled off a sinker. On the fourth pitch, he connected on a slurve at the top of the zone, sending it to center field. The game-tying, two-run double was the first of Abrams’s three hits in the Nationals’ 5-3 win.
There were big moments for Washington. And Abrams once again delivered.
“Just seems like when we need him to step up, he does so,” Manager Blake Butera said.
With the Diamondbacks — who currently hold the third wild-card spot — in town and the trade deadline just over a week away, the Nationals haven’t played with stakes this high since 2019. And Abrams, one of their leaders on and off the field, is not just playing up to the pressure. He thrives in it.
After his big game Saturday, Abrams finished the week 14 for 25 with five home runs in six games. With his contributions, the Nationals were able to even the series, pushing them back to one game above .500 and two games behind the Diamondbacks in the wild-card standings.
“Definitely enjoy it,” Abrams said. “It’s exciting. We’ve done a great job coming up to this point, playing good baseball, so we look to continue to do that.”
Abrams’s efforts may not have mattered, though, had it not been for another solid performance from Foster Griffin. The left-hander allowed three runs in 6⅔ innings to raise his already sky-high trade value.
In the third, Ryan Waldschmidt led off with an infield single, and Griffin hit Corbin Carroll with a sinker. They both scored on a single by Gabriel Moreno, who was thrown out trying to advance to second.
The Diamondbacks didn’t hold the lead for long. In the bottom of the inning, a Curtis Mead walk and an Andrés Chaparro double put runners on second and third for Abrams. He came through with his double, though he was quickly caught stealing for the second out.
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But the Nationals weren’t finished. A triple by Daylen Lile — his fifth of the season, one better than Luis García Jr. for the team lead — drove in Dylan Crews and Jacob Young to make it 4-2.
Two innings later, Abrams crushed an 0-1 sinker for his 25th home run of the season, extending the lead to 5-2.
“Credit to our hitting coaches for helping him simplify his plan, simplify his approach to get him back to keeping things extremely simple in the box and hunting a pitch where he does damage on,” Butera said.
Griffin was able to hold the score for the next three innings, setting Arizona’s hitters down in order. Crews chipped in with a running catch on the warning track to take away a possible extra-base hit from James McCann in the fifth. Instead of targeting the corners, a spot the Diamondbacks were hitting, Griffin moved to the middle of the zone.
That worked, until the seventh. Tim Tawa doubled on Griffin’s 101st pitch, and McCann drove him in on Griffin’s 108th. Butera brought in right-hander Eddy Yean, and Griffin walked off the mound to a standing ovation in what could have been his last home start.
Griffin, who turns 31 on Monday, said it was a weird spot to be in. He was frustrated with how his start ended, as he wanted to get the Nationals through the seventh, but he appreciated the support. He knows if the Nationals decide to sell — and even if they decide not to — he could be a player they are willing to part with.
“I try not to let it affect me, but I am human, right?” Griffin said. “So it’s just kind of my job right now to go out there and pitch games for the Nats and try to get us deep in ballgames and win games. That’s all I can do. That’s all my focus is right now, and whatever happens, happens.”
The Nationals loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh after Abrams’s leadoff single — his third hit of the day — and walks by Crews and Nasim Nuñez. They failed to get any runs across, but it didn’t matter, as Yean and Clayton Beeter combined for 2⅓ scoreless innings.
“Eddy was huge. I mean, to come in there in the seventh and go out there in the eighth against 1-2-3 and make easy work of it like he did, he’s going to be huge for us. That was an unbelievable outing, to do it here at home, too,” Butera said. “It was nice to have no drama to end the game there.”
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