Notes and quotes from Mitchell Parker’s big night to Luis García, Jr.’s big home run…
PARKER BOUNCES BACK:
Before Mitchell Parker’s somewhat disastrous outing against Philadelphia’s Phillies last week in Citizens Bank Park (10 H, 2 BBs, 9 ER in 3 IP), Nationals’ manager Davey Martinez talked to reporters about the growth he’d seen from Washington’s 24-year-old, 2020 5th Round pick over the course of his rookie campaign.
“For me he’s really learned the routine,” Martinez said.
“He’s got a really good routine going on right now. And I think it’s helping him understand while physically he’s ready, the mental part of it, is what — he’s really ready. It’s been a long season for him, this is going to be the most he’s ever pitched. He’s got to understand that whatever happens today, after today it’s all over, he’s got to get to that next game which is in 5-6 days, and go from there.”
“Some days you get beat,” Parker said, as quoted by MASN’s Bobby Blanco. “I feel today, I just got beat. Everything felt good, but they’re a great team and they did everything right today.”
Photo by Jess Rapfogel/Getty Images
He did, as his manager suggested, seem to have already put it behind him when speaking after the outing.
“We’re going to build off of it,” Parker said, after the abbreviated start bumped him from a 3.83 to a 4.44 ERA (3.94 FIP to 4.09) with a .256/.303/.419 line against, 31 walks (2.41 BB/9), and 98 Ks (7.63 K/9) in 115 2⁄3 IP.
“It’s not the end of the world. It stings, it sucks, but got to build off of it.”
Parker did just that. Going up against the Colorado Rockies, the southpaw was efficient as he held opposing hitters to a run on five hits and one walk in seven innings, over which he struck out six, with 10 swinging and 16 called strikes in an 83-pitch outing.
The one run he allowed came on an RBI double by Brendan Rogers in the top of the seventh inning, the second of back-to-back hits which started his final inning of work, but Parker got the next three outs on 11 pitches to end the inning and his start. He finished the night with a 4.26 ERA and a 3.97 FIP on the year.
“Nothing seems to really bother him,” Martinez said of his stoic starter after a 6-1 win over the Rockies in the second of three in D.C.
“He learns from his mistakes from the previous starts, and then he gets back and after it.
“Today, he pounded the strike zone. At one point he had like 40 strikes and 12 balls. But he’s working ahead, his breaking ball was way sharper today than it’s been a couple outings ago, but he threw the ball really well.”
Photo by Jess Rapfogel/Getty Images
“Like we’ve been saying all year with it: Learn what you can from things like the last one,” Parker said, as quoted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman. “Ride with them, and keep learning.
“Try and learn every day.”
How does a young pitcher put a rough start like the one in Philly behind him and move on?
“He needs to not think about what happened in the previous outing. Focus on what he did today, and build from that,” Martinez explained. “That’s what we want him to understand: Let’s think about what you did today, he was ahead quite a bit, and that always helps, his breaking ball was sharp, so let’s focus on what you did today, and carry it over five or six days from now.
“This is who we saw earlier [this season]. This is who he can be. Today reminded me a lot of the first five or six outings that he had in the beginning of the year, he looked like that today, so that was awesome, that he could bounce back and come back like that, and like I said, he’s a guy that really focuses on staying in the moment.”
LUIS GARCÍA, JR.’s BIG HOME RUN:
With the score 1-0 in the home team’s favor after two, the Nats struck again in the home-half of the third inning, with Alex Call, James Wood, and Keibert Ruiz all singling in front of Luis García, who stepped in after Ruiz’s RBI hit made it 2-0, and hit a three-run home run off of Rockies’ starter Tanner Gordon, sending a 1-0 fastball over the middle 419 ft. out to center for a 4-0 lead in what ended up a 6-1 win.
García’s 15th of 2024 was the big blow as the Nationals even things up with the Rockies and set up a rubber match this afternoon in the nation’s capital. As the club highlighted in their post game notes, García has now, “… hit safely in 16 of his last 20 games [and he] is hitting .375 (27-for-72) with a .597 [SLG] (4 2B, 4 HR), 12 RBI, six walks, four stolen bases, and 12 runs [scored] during this stretch.”
saint lui baby pic.twitter.com/OU7XBxeWQ0
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) August 21, 2024
“It was nice to get the big home run, but we were having better at-bats today,” Martinez said after the win.
“So the whole idea was to just stay right there. Don’t try to force things, just we’ll get some runs on the board. They did that, and it worked out well for us.”
“We really try to stay in the middle of the field, try to get the ball up,” Martinez added. “The guy had a good changeup, we were trying to get the ball up in the strike zone, Luis hit a fastball up, which was awesome, but everyone was trying to get the ball up, and we hit the ball well.”