The right-hander took a no-hitter into the seventh and allowed just one hit in eight scoreless innings.
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Washington Nationals pitcher Jake Irvin was going to throw away his notes on the Chicago Cubs earlier this week. His start had passed, and since the two teams wouldn’t face each other again in the regular season after Thursday, he didn’t need them anymore.
Cade Cavalli stopped him before they landed in the trash bin and asked whether he could have them, even though he had never used Irvin’s notes before.
“If I throw a no-hitter, I’m going to need these from you every time,” the right-hander told Irvin that day.
It was said as a joke. But on Thursday, Cavalli nearly did that, setting down Chicago’s lineup, one of the best in baseball, with ease. And while he lost the no-hitter in the seventh inning, he still pitched eight scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and striking out 10 in the Nationals’ 7-0 win.
“I told him that was unbelievable,” Manager Blake Butera said. “I enjoyed just sitting back and watching him pitch.”
When Cavalli made his Opening Day start against the Cubs, the Nationals had high hopes for his season, but no real way of knowing how he would hold up in his first full major league slate. After making just one start in 2022, he didn’t appear in another major league game until 2025 following a long journey back from Tommy John surgery. He made 10 starts last season, pitching to a 4.25 ERA in the small sample size.
Tabbing him as their Opening Day starter gave him the title of their No. 1 starter. And while that wasn’t his best outing — he allowed two earned runs but managed just 3⅔ innings — he has shown traces of being that guy throughout the season. There was the seven-inning start in Boston on June 30, when he allowed just one run. Plus, the six quality starts in a row spanning from July 12 to Aug. 7.
“I think the stuff has been really good all year,” Butera said. “I think the efficiency is what stands out. Him being able to pitch that deeply into the game, I don’t think he’s doing that 10, 15 starts ago because he’s really learning how to pitch now.”
Cavalli reached another level in Thursday’s start. He sent down the first nine batters he faced with ease, needing only 29 pitches to get through the first three innings. It was then, he said, that he started to believe a no-hitter was possible.
The fourth and fifth innings continued that same pattern. His four-seam fastball averaged 98.1 mph, with all six of his pitches playing in and around the zone.
In the bottom of the fifth, the Nationals put up five runs, highlighted by a three-run home run from Abimelec Ortiz, a negative only in the sense that Cavalli had to wait for more than 20 minutes before he could take the mound again. When he finally did in the top of the sixth, he walked his first batter Dansby Swanson on four pitches and was in danger of doing the same to Michael Conforto when catcher Keibert Ruiz came out to calm Cavalli.
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Ruiz told him to breathe and start over again. Then he walked away, giving Cavalli a moment to refocus. After being down 3-0 in the count, Cavalli threw his first strike of the inning. He followed that with a low knuckle curve that Conforto lined to Ortiz, who then threw to CJ Abrams at second and back to a charging Cavalli at first to secure the double play.
“Really happy for Cade,” Ruiz said. “He works really hard to perform like that.”
To leadoff the seventh, Pete Crow-Armstrong extended the at-bat to seven pitches before a sweeper got him swinging for strike three. Cavalli had a little extra pep in his strikeout strut. He was feeling it, and getting the MVP candidate to strike out for the second time only confirmed it.
Cavalli earned the second out of the inning without any trouble. With seven outs to go, Cavalli went ahead 2-1 against Michael Busch before he connected on a 97.6 mph four-seam fastball. It was not hit hard, but it landed in shallow left field, the blooper just enough to give Busch a single.
Cavalli punched his glove when the ball dropped, a shout escaping him. But the crowd at Nationals Park honored the 6⅔ no-hit innings, giving him a standing ovation.
“It stinks in the moment,” Cavalli said. “But then you just have to get right to the next pitch … know my defense gave it everything they had. If they could have caught that, they would have done it. It fell in the right spot, and you just have to live with that.”
The no-hitter was gone, but Cavalli’s day was not over yet. He got the last out of the seventh, then came out for the eighth, too. He got Ian Happ to line out on two pitches, then Pedro Ramírez to strike out on three.
A four-pitch walk to Swanson prompted a mound visit. Pitching coach Simon Mathews told him to finish this inning. They were giving him the runway to keep going, and he needed to close out the inning.
So Cavalli did just that. With his pitch count climbing over 100, he battled Conforto to a full count before unfurling an 88.3 mph sweeper that danced to the top corner of the zone for Cavalli’s 10th strikeout of the game.
With his job now complete, Cavalli walked off the mound with conviction to yet another standing ovation from the crowd.
On the eve of his 28th birthday, he has the best game of his career under his belt.
“I thank the Lord every day that I have the opportunity to come in here and go compete for these guys and this staff, it’s something that I truly dreamed about since I got drafted here,” Cavalli said. “I got to watch [Stephen] Strasburg, [Max] Scherzer do it in the World Series, and I know that all of us are looking forward to that one day.”
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