The outing Mitchell Parker put together Thursday night was one straight out of a manager’s dream. Parker attacked hitters and rarely fell behind. He worked at a rapid pace. And perhaps most importantly, he threw just 71 pitches through seven innings. The start checked all of the boxes that Manager Dave Martinez repeats before every game.
And yet here’s why baseball can be so unforgiving. Despite all of that, Parker threw a four-seam fastball on the black of home plate to Adam Duvall that was barely a strike. And Duvall launched it for a two-run, game-tying home run in the seventh inning.
In the eighth, after Parker exited, Hunter Harvey entered and recorded the first two outs. Then Ozzie Albies doubled, Austin Riley hit an RBI single and Marcell Ozuna launched a slider that caught too much of the plate into the seats in left-center. In the end, despite Parker’s efforts, the Nationals fell, 5-2, to the Atlanta Braves at Nationals Park.
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“All game, I had been getting him,” Parker said about Duvall. “So just keeping the same approach, attacking. He got a good pitch, and it’ll happen a lot. Good pitch, great hitter.”
Martinez could have kept Parker in the game given his low pitch count, but with his best two relievers available, the choice was clear. It just didn’t pay off. At some point, Parker will have an outing in which nothing goes right and he’s exposed for the rookie that he is. Yet he somehow has continued to avoid the drop-off that typically plagues rookie starters as teams start to get advanced scouting reports.
“What he’s doing really doesn’t surprise me because of how poised he is,” Martinez said. “He’s going to get the ball. He’s going to attack. He works quick. And he’s going to be in the zone.”
Parker has made 10 starts at the big league level and still has not allowed more than three runs in any of them. It’s hard to find glaring flaws with the left-hander, who continues to show pinpoint command even though that was his biggest red flag when he was called up to the majors. He hasn’t walked hitters at a high rate — he has issued more than two free passes in only one outing. And it was even harder to find a weakness Thursday, even against a team that saw Parker on May 27 in Atlanta. In that outing, Parker pitched 6⅓ innings of three-run baseball for the Nationals (27-35) but allowed a homer to Duvall.
On Thursday, Parker even flirted with history. The Braves (35-25) were aggressive early in counts, yet Parker kept them off balance. He didn’t miss many bats, but that didn’t matter. When the Braves did make contact, the result was weak groundballs or flyouts. They would throw their bats to the side in frustration. Parker finished with seven groundouts and six flyouts. And yet when asked about his performance, Parker said, “I mean, it was just another good start.”
But it wasn’t just another good start. Parker had a perfect game going into the fifth inning, which ended with a one-out fastball that hit Duvall’s foot, and a no-hitter going into the sixth, which Orlando Arcia broke up with a leadoff double. And entering the seventh, he was still in prime position to go the distance based on his pitch count. He threw nine pitches in the first, followed by 11, eight, eight, nine and 13.
And it seemed he would get just enough run support. During the first three games of the Nationals’ homestand, Washington collected 24 hits against the New York Mets. Twenty-three of those were singles, with a Joey Gallo home run the lone extra-base hit. That was one reason the Nationals were swept by a team that entered the series scuffling.
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Washington had only two singles through the first five innings against former Nationals prospect Reynaldo Lopez until CJ Abrams stepped up to open the sixth inning. Abrams has been mired in a slump that has lasted over a month. But when the Nationals are at their best on offense, it’s often because their star shortstop is in a rhythm.
So it was only fitting that Abrams crushed a four-seam fastball in a 0-2 count into the seats in right-center field to give the Nationals their first lead of the evening. Abrams stood at home for a brief second to watch it, then started his trot. By the time he finished celebrating in the dugout, he looked to the field in just enough time to see Lane Thomas hit a solo shot to give the Nationals a 2-0 advantage. That lead wouldn’t last long, though.
“I think we just got to build off those at-bats and get guys on in those situations,” Thomas said. “Two solo shots, you got to score more than two runs against a team like that.”
After Harvey gave up the lead, the Nationals went down in order in the eighth and ninth, their struggles perhaps best embodied by Jesse Winker, who struck out to end the eighth, slammed his helmet on the ground and watched as it rolled along the first base line.
“I thought once we scored that run and then Lane hit the home run, it’d be a trickle effect,” Martinez said. “It didn’t happen.”
