Notes and quotes from the Nationals’ road trip…
HEADED HOME:
Washington’s Nationals took 2 of 3 from the Cardinals in St. Louis, and went into the series finale in Arizona yesterday with a chance to finish their road trip 3-3 after losses in the first two games with the D-backs.
“We got a chance to go 3-3 on this road trip,” manager Davey Martinez said after a 17-0 loss on Tuesday night, “which will say a lot, so we’ll come back tomorrow, we’re out of July, new month, so let’s try to go 1-0 tomorrow.”
Martinez said before the game he and those players who remained Nationals after the 2024 Trade Deadline passed were happy to move on from an emotional couple weeks, and focus on playing baseball over the final two months-plus of the season.
Photo by Scott Taetsch/Getty Images
“Let’s go play baseball, right? I mean, I’m just glad that the guys that we have we’ve got, and now we can just focus on playing baseball,” the seventh-year manager said. “It’s a tough time for some of these guys, because you hear your name pop up all over the place, and it takes away the focus of what they’re trying to do, it really does.”
“Once it’s over with and they stay put,” he continued, “it’s a little sigh of relief for them.
“Now we get a chance to go out there and just try to finish up strong here the next two months.”
Martinez’s club fell short in the third of three with the D-backs, dropping a 5-4 decision in which they rallied for three in the last two innings, but couldn’t pull off another comeback.
“We were just really trying to get the ball in the zone, we really were,” the skipper said at the end of a 2-4 road trip, and the 10-hit, four-run, 2 for 12 with runners in scoring position, 11 left on base loss. “When we got the ball in the zone we hit the ball pretty hard. I’m always proud of the guys, win or lose, the effort that they give for 27 outs. I mean, they come out today and they fought, and like I said, we were one hit away from taking the lead. We’ve got a day off tomorrow, got a long flight tonight, we’ll come back Friday ready to go.”
werk pic.twitter.com/CBQjd7cC6G
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) July 31, 2024
What he said he wants to see going forward, is his team putting together the kind of at-bats they had in the last couple innings on Wednesday afternoon.
“We worked good at-bats. We tried to get the ball in the zone. We’ve got to be conscious of that from the first inning on. When we get the ball in the zone, we hit the ball well.”
Considering that they traded Hunter Harvey earlier in the month, and Jesse Winker, Lane Thomas, and Dylan Floro before the deadline, Martinez said he was happy to see the club keep it together.
“Guys lose their friends, they lose their teammates, a lot of different things happened. We swung the bats really well the first couple days in the roadtrip, and then again we didn’t swing the bats yesterday,” he explained, “… and today we swung the bats a lot better. So let’s just be consistent. That’s the biggest thing right now, is just consistent hitting, make good pitches, playing good defense, and go from there. This is who we are. We still got a lot of baseball left, and I want to really finish the season off on a positive note, but understand that it’s one day at a time, so let’s come back Friday and go 1-0 Friday.”
RUIZ LEAVES GAME:
Keibert Ruiz left Wednesday’s game a little while after he took a skipped pitch off his lower-abdominal area (groin).
Ruiz, of course, suffered a similar, significant injury back in 2022, and the catcher had to be hospitalized. The hope is this latest issue is not as bad as the previous one he suffered.
Manager Davey Martinez was asked how Ruiz was doing after the game.
“I don’t know yet, but he got hit pretty good, so I’m going to check on him here in a little bit,” the manager said, noting the similarities to two years back and acknowledging they were concerned about their catcher.
“I’m a little concerned,” Martinez said. “I’m going to talk to the trainers and see what’s going on, and I’ll let you guys know on Friday.”
POST DEADLINE RIZZO ON JUNKIES:
GM and President of Baseball Operations Mike Rizzo talked at length with reporters after the 2024 Trade Deadline passed, with the Nationals making a number of moves which bolstered the organizational depth.
On Wednesday morning, Rizzo talked with 106.7 the FAN in D.C.’s Sports Junkies about how he thought things went at the deadline, and where things stand with the club following the trades and prospect haul they received in return for the veterans they did deal in the end.
“I think you see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Rizzo said of the years-long reboot in the nation’s capital potentially bearing fruit in the near future.
Photo by Patrick McDermott/Getty Images
“I think anybody who has watched the team closely and critiqued us they see that we’re getting close.
“When you have emerging young starters and emerging corps group of young players and more on the way, I think you supplement that with some astute free agent signings and you’re right in it.”
“Some teams are perpetually rebuilding and that’s not us. We rebuilt once, had eight, nine years of success and we’re rebuilding again.
“But in that time, we’ve won four divisions and a Wild Card and a world championship that a lot of other teams rebuilding can’t say.”