Washington Nationals news & notes: DJ Herz learns a lot in first major league run

Notes and quotes on lefty DJ Herz’s surprisingly successful run in the Nationals’ rotation…

In his next-to-last start of the season, DJ Herz struggled through 3 ¹⁄₃ innings over which he gave up six hits, three walks, and seven earned runs.

Herz, 23, got up to 83 pitches in the abbreviated turn in the rotation, with five of the hits, all of the runs, and two of the three free passes coming in the fourth inning, when he threw 35 of his 83 pitches before getting pulled.

Herz, asked what he’d take away from the start, told reporters it was one to just put behind him and move on from as he tries to learn at the major league level.

“I don’t think I really like take too much,” Herz said. “I kind of just forget about it, move on to the next, and then we keep doing the same thing that we’ve been doing.

“Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t, obviously the first walk in that fourth inning is not a good way to start it, and you kind of build your own luck with that, so yeah, that’s kind of how it went.”

As for explaining why it went the way it did, Herz said it was a matter of not putting hitters away.

“I think I was attacking the zone. I was getting ahead,” he explained.

“That fourth inning, they did a really good job with two-strike hitting. And yeah, they got me.

“All their hits were on two strikes in that last inning, so I’m not too sure.”

It was another learning experience for the rookie, acquired in a deadline deal with the Cubs in 2023, in a breakout run in the Nationals’ rotation.

“It’s a learning process, right?” manager Davey Martinez said of Herz’s penultimate start and season as a whole.

“We’ll sit down with him, we’ll talk about what happened, what transpired, and what we can do different for his next outing.

“He’s been pretty good, so we’re not going to beat him up too much. But we want him to learn from this mistake, so his next outing he learns when something does go awry, or the first guy gets on, he knows how to slow things down and get to the next pitch.”

“I think it’s just kind of minimize as much as you can,” Herz said of how he needs to approach tough spots, “… and I try to just let it go, like, ‘They got those three runs, let’s reset. Let’s get the next guys.’”

Herz worked around leadoff walks in two of his five innings on the mound in start No. 19 in the majors, and he held Kansas City’s Royals to one run on three hits and three walks in a five-inning, 81-pitch start in his final trip to the mound this season.

“His fastball — his velo was down a little bit, but he grinded through innings for us, which says a lot for him, how much he matured over the years,” Martinez said of Herz’s effort.

“In the beginning, when he didn’t have his good stuff, that would’ve been three innings and 85-90 pitches.

“He grinded out five innings for us at 81 pitches, which tells me a lot about him and his growth. So it was very good.”

Herz finished the year with a 4.16 ERA, a 3.71 FIP, 36 walks (3.65 BB/9), 106 Ks (10.76 K/9), and a .224/.303/.359 line against in 88 ²⁄₃ IP.

“It’s been a good season. There’s been a lot of learning,” Herz said after his next-to-last start.

“I’m proud of myself getting through this first one,” he said after the final outing, as quoted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman. “It was really good. I’m just thankful to get through the season healthy and have another full season down.”