Notes and quotes from the Nationals’ third straight loss to the Mets in Citi Field…
GORE FRUSTRATED WITH FIRST HALF:
Looking to bounce back from a rough, 3 1⁄3-inning, 90-pitch outing against the St. Louis Cardinals in the nation’s capital last week, MacKenzie Gore took the mound on Thursday afternoon in Citi Field, and tossed four scoreless, working around a walk and a double to keep the New York Mets off the board.
Then in the fifth … Gore gave up a leadoff double on a high fastball to Luis Torrens, and then back-to-back, two-out walks to Jeff McNeil and Francisco Lindor, setting Brandon Nimmo up with an RBI opportunity the Mets’ outfielder cashed in with a base-clearing double to put his team up 3-0 and knock Washington’s starter out of the game in what ended up a 7-0 loss to the Nationals’ NL East rivals, who swept the three-game set in Flushing, Queens.
This guy’s on FIRE @You_Found_Nimmo | #LGM pic.twitter.com/ojIyMfNkdQ
— New York Mets (@Mets) July 11, 2024
“I thought he threw the ball really good the first [few innings],” Martinez said after the game in assessing Gore’s outing.
“In the [fifth] inning, he got in trouble,” the manager continued. “But his pitch count got up there … they started fouling pitches off, it’s 2-2, 3-2, a lot of fouls. Next thing you know, he’s up there in the 90s in four innings. But he’s got the stuff. His stuff is electric. So we just got to get him to understand: Keep working ahead, keep working ahead.”
Mets’ hitters fouled off 25 of Gore’s 95 pitches in his 4 2⁄3 innings of work, including 16 of his 52 fastballs.
Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
“Yeah, they didn’t get a hit until the fourth,” Gore said, as quoted by MASN’s Bobby Blanco:
“But these big outings, they all got something. The same thing keeps happening: I keep walking guys in one inning. I’m not pitching well. I gotta be better. … I just gotta be better. I have not been pitching well and if I don’t clean up, we’re gonna keep having these tough conversations. Or we can do what we were doing earlier in the year and do what we’re supposed to do.”
“I’m capable of doing much better than what I just put together in the first half,” Gore said of his first 19 starts, which he finished with a 4.01 ERA, a 3.08 FIP, 37 walks (3.38 BB/9), and 116 Ks (10.58 K/9) in 98 2⁄3 IP.
“We still got starts left. A lot of baseball left. But I think it was a very frustrating first half at times.”
“His stuff is electric,” Martinez said when he too was asked for his take on Gore’s pre-All-Star Game outings. “He’s still learning. We’ve got to get him to understand, that hey, four pitches or less to each at-bat and he’s going to be just fine.
“He’s got to figure out a way how to get that put-away pitch. He gets deep in counts with guys and then he puts them away, but we’ve got to get him to get it done early.”
NO OFFENSE:
Davey Martinez’s club was shut out for the 10th time in 94 games in their 7-0 loss to New York’s Mets on Thursday.
Martinez told reporters in his post game press conference on Thursday afternoon the club had to turn things around at the plate, and start driving in runners.
Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images
“We had our chances,” he said of the 0 for 12 performance with runners in scoring position and 13 runners left on base in the loss. “We just couldn’t score any runs. The at-bats just got to get better with guys in scoring position. We talked about it yesterday. You know I always say that when you’ve got a guy on second or third base with less than two outs, the pressure is on the pitcher. I think we’re just pressing a little bit. I know we’re young, but we’re just pressing just too much and just trying to make things happen, not just staying in the zone. But we got to get better at it. We got to get better.”
“The whole team is in a funk right now when it comes to hitting,” Martinez said.
“We’re hitting but we’re not driving in runs. And the name of the game is to drive in runs.
“Hopefully we just had a bad couple days, come back tomorrow in Milwaukee and let’s see if we can score some runs.”