Dylan Crews will look to extend his hitting streak when the Washington Nationals host the Baltimore Orioles in the middle contest of their three-game series on Wednesday night.
Crews went 1-for-4 with a solo home run in Washington’s 7-0 win on Tuesday night. He has hit safely in seven straight games, going 9-for-27 (.333) with a double, three homers, five RBIs, one walk and eight runs.
The Nationals will turn to Trevor Williams (1-2, 5.95 ERA) to start Wednesday’s game, while the Orioles will counter with fellow right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano (2-1, 3.43).
Williams was a hard-luck loser in his last start when he allowed one run on three hits over five innings Thursday in a 1-0 defeat against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He struck out five, walked three and allowed a solo home run.
“I think I’ve been throwing pretty well this year,” Williams said. “It’s just one of those things where we have tough luck here or there, or one pitch gets out of hand. I thought we’ve been doing a great job of executing, albeit maybe one or two pitches a start. But today we were just able to limit the damage to one run.”
Williams had allowed 12 earned runs over his first three starts. He is 2-0 with an 0.82 ERA in two career starts versus Baltimore.
Sugano, 35, will make his fifth major league start on Wednesday. Last time out he picked up a win against the Cleveland Guardians, allowing two runs on five hits over seven innings in a 6-2 victory Thursday. He struck out three and did not walk a batter.
“I used a lot of off-speed pitches in the early innings, so I got swinging strikes toward the end of my outing,” said Sugano, who has not faced the Nationals in his career.
Manager Brandon Hyde will look for Sugano to end a brutal stretch for Orioles pitchers. Baltimore allowed seven runs Tuesday after being routed 24-2 on Sunday by the Cincinnati Reds.
On offense, the Orioles managed just one hit on Tuesday night.
“We did not play well,” Hyde said. “It is disappointing. Coming off a game we definitely wanted to throw away a couple of days ago, an off-day, to come out and not take great at-bats and not play very good baseball tonight, that was disappointing.”
Cedric Mullins had Baltimore’s only hit and walked twice.
Nationals starter Mitchell Parker tossed eight shutout innings and got plenty of offensive support. Crews and Nathaniel Lowe each homered, James Wood had two doubles and a single, Jose Tena had three extra-base hits, and Keibert Ruiz had three hits for Washington, which had 10 extra-base hits.
“When you see your teammates out there getting extra-base hits, it kind of gives you extra motivation, as well, to go out there and do your job,” Tena said, via an interpreter. “I think for sure, it’s definitely contagious.”
Wood has reached base safely in 16 of his last 18 games, with 10 extra-base hits (four doubles, six homers), 16 RBIs, 10 walks, two stolen bases and 15 runs in that span.
In his last 11 games, Lowe is batting .351 (13-for-37) with 10 RBIs. He has reached base safely in 12 straight games.
–Field Level Media
