Washington Nationals news & notes: Nats swept in Citi Field with 10-0 loss; finish 2-11 vs Mets…

Notes and quotes from the series finale in Citi Field … which the Nationals lost. 2-11 vs the Mets. For shame.

HERZ STORY:

Following his extended break/trip to Triple-A around the All-Star break in mid-July, DJ Herz quietly put together a sustained stretch of solid starts, with a 2.76 ERA, 3.58 FIP, and over the last 10 turns and 49 innings pitched, a combined .181/.274/.299 line against.

“He’s been really good,” Davey Martinez told reporters after Herz, 23, held Miami to a run on four hits and one walk in five innings last week in the nation’s capital.

“When we first saw him, he was all over the map,” Martinez said of the southpaw acquired from Chicago’s Cubs in the Jeimer Candelario trade at the deadline last season. “He really was. We got him, we talked to him in Spring Training — I talked to him about just controlling the strike zone. Be aggressive in the zone. You have to be in the zone. You can’t pitch here when you’re walking 3-4-5 guys a game. He took it to heart, went down and really was just trying to throw the ball over the plate. He gets up here, and he’s had his moments, but we felt like the fastball was really good. The changeup was really good. He’s getting better with that little knuckle curve that he throws, but for him it’s all about attacking the zone and staying on the plate. When he does that, he’s really good.”

“I’m attacking guys,” Herz said, as quoted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman after facing the Fish.

“I’m confident with my stuff in the zone,” he added. “I can feel the confidence, and getting more comfortable. I feel good.”

“He’s been really good,” Martinez said before Herz faced the Mets last night in the finale in Citi Field.

“Once again, a young pitcher that we got and we really pressed him to throw strikes and pound the strike zone. He’s got good stuff, he’s got a really good electric fastball, good changeup. We worked a little bit on his breaking ball, it’s gotten better, but it was all about his ability to throw strikes, and when he does that, he’s really, really good. He’s been a lot more efficient over the last few starts, he’s been giving us — we’re trying to take care of him — but he’s been giving us five-plus innings every start, so hopefully he can go out there and do it again.

“This lineup’s tough, they got some good right-handed hitters, but once again, he can’t shy away from the strike zone.”

Herz tossed three scoreless to start his outing, working around a walk and a single, but then things went all pear-shaped in the fourth, with the first four Mets’ hitters reaching base, on a walk, single, RBI double, and two-run single. A two-out walk and back-to-back singles, one a run-scoring hit, made it 4-0 in the home team’s favor, and Herz was done for the night at 83 pitches in 3 ¹⁄₃ IP (he was at 48 after 3 IP).

He finished the night with three walks, five Ks, 15 swinging and 12 called strikes, eight of each on his fastball, which he threw 52% of the time. The issue, as with all the hits in the fourth, is he couldn’t put hitters away after getting to two strikes.

“I think I was attacking the zone. I was getting ahead. That fourth inning, they did a really good job with two-strike hitting. And yeah, they got me,” Herz told reporters after what ended up a 10-0 loss.

“All their hits were on two strikes in that last inning,” he acknowledged.

“I was attacking the zone, I was getting ahead, I was getting two strikes, they just beat me on the two-strike hitting today.”

“When he fell behind — he fell behind, he walked guys,” Martinez said. “And when he got ahead he couldn’t put guys away. He had a lot of guys 1-2, he just couldn’t put them away. It felt like everything started speeding up on him, I saw he started getting a little frustrated, so we got him out of there. His pitch count got up there too, so he just couldn’t finish hitters off.”

NO CAVALLI IN 2024:

Davey Martinez acknowledged what was at this point fairly obvious on Tuesday afternoon: Cade Cavalli is not likely to see any game action this season as the Nationals’ 26-year-old 2020 1st Round pick by Washington continues to rehab from the Tommy John surgery he underwent in March of 2023.

Cavalli dealt with an illness and dead arm period as he worked his way back, but he ran out of time to make what he and the team hoped would be at least a few turns in the big league rotation this season.

“At this point I think we’re just going to let him continue to finish throwing,” the manager explained, “… and do his throwing program. I don’t see him coming back, especially not pitching here at all, but we want to make sure we get him healthy for Spring Training.”

Cavalli made three starts in the minors earlier this season, but the setbacks in his rehab forced him to restart the process of building his arm up.

Photo by Saul Martinez for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Martinez said he didn’t see Cavalli going to the Arizona Fall League or anywhere else to keep going this offseason.

“We talked to him about that, and I talked to [General manager Mike Rizzo] about that, and we’re kind of in agreement,” the skipper said. “Just, he worked really hard to get back to where he’s at right now. We just want him to continue his rehab and be ready for spring.”

“He’s got a bright future,” Rizzo told 106.7 the FAN in D.C.’s Sports Junkies on Wednesday morning.

“He was one of the best pitching prospects in baseball until he had Tommy John surgery, he’s rehabbing now. His rehab is going longer than we had planned on it, he had a couple setbacks, but he’s going to be fine by the end of Spring Training. And we expect him to be a big part of the rotation going forward.”