Washington Nationals news & notes: Nats battle back to beat Mets, 7-5; Luis García, Jr. homers twice in D.C.

Notes and quotes from the Nationals first win in this week’s series with the Mets…

PARKER VS NYM:

Mitchell Parker gave up a solo home run and RBI single which accounted for the only two runs he allowed in a five-inning, 92-pitch outing last week in Tampa Bay’s Tropicana Field.

Nationals’ skipper Davey Martinez talked before and after the start against the Rays about Parker’s poise on the mound, and the 24-year-old rookie’s calm demeanor.

“He just stays in the moment, doesn’t try to do too much, and gets big outs,” the manager said.

“So, he threw the ball well. His pitch count got up there a little bit, but he kept us in the ballgame.”

Parker told reporters keeping his team in the game is his goal every time out.

“Like I’ve said since the first start here,” he explained, as quoted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman.

“I’m just trying to keep us in the game, the best chance to win,” the rookie said.

“I’ll keep saying it. That’s really the end goal: Win as many games as possible, keep us in it, save some arms.”

Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images

Through his first 14 starts in the majors, he’d allowed three runs or fewer in 12 turns in the Nats’ big league rotation, with three earned runs or fewer in 13 of 14.

In six starts and 34 ¹⁄₃ IP in June, Parker gave up just three home runs. Last night in Nationals Park, he gave up three in six innings, with Tyrone Taylor taking the lefty deep on a 1-0 heater up and in that went 413 ft to left in the third. Mark Vientos hit a two-run shot to center on 1-2 fastball up in the zone in the fourth (435 ft), and then Francisco Lindor hit a full-count curve low but over the middle of plate 414 ft. to left-center for a two-run blast of his own, and a 5-0 lead after four and a half.

Parker gave up five hits and five runs in the end, striking out five in an 84-pitch, 61-strike, 14-swinging strike, 12-called strike turn in the Nationals’ rotation.

In spite of the hole they found themselves in, however, Martinez’s club fought back with an RBI single by Ildemaro Vargas in the fifth (which scored Luis García, Jr. after García, Jr. took a leadoff walk and moved up on a single by Joey Meneses). García, Jr. hit a three-run homer in the sixth, driving James Wood and Jesse Winker in after they’d reached on back-to-back, one-out singles, 5-4.

Wood, 21, in his third MLB game, drove in the tying run with an RBI single in the bottom of the seventh, 6-5.

In the eighth, García, Jr. hit a solo shot, his second home run of the game ninth of the year, to make it 7-5.

That’s how it ended, with the Nats on top, following back-to-back losses to the Mets in the first two of four in D.C. this week.

“The whole team battled today, you know. We’re down, and we stayed with it, and big home runs by Luis, I mean, he struck the ball really well,” Martinez said after the win.

“All the guys were battling up there, so it was a good win for us.”

“We battle. We go out there, we have a lot of energy,” García, Jr. said, via translator Octavio Martinez after the game. “We’re always staying positive. And no matter what the score is, if we’re down by 6-7-8 runs, it doesn’t matter. If it’s down to the last out in the ninth inning, it doesn’t matter. We go out there and we battle our at-bats and keep our same positive attitude and our energy.”

Asked about García, Jr.’s two-homer game, Martinez said it’s a lot of hard work paying off.

“He stayed back and he was able to drive the ball, but he got in his legs on both, which is awesome,” the manager said.

“They’ve been working diligently to get these guys right, [Hitting Coach] Darnell [Coles] and CJ [Assistant Hitting Coach Chris Johnson], and they keep working with these guys, they try to get them to understand what it takes to hit, and today it worked out. We had some better at-bats, drove the ball a little bit better, and we’ve got to continue to do that tomorrow.”

The NL East rivals wrap up their four-game set with in the nation’s capital with an 11:05 AM matchup tomorrow. Happy 4th of July.