Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez wasn’t too concerned with his team’s offensive shortcomings in a 7-1 loss to the Texas Rangers in the opener of a three-game series in Arlington, Texas.
“The bats weren’t good today, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. It was one game,” Martinez said Tuesday after his team mustered three singles — with only one reaching the outfield.
Martinez will turn to right-hander Trevor Williams (2-0, 2.70 ERA) on Wednesday night to try and even the series. Williams is 0-2 with an 8.38 ERA in two career starts against the Rangers.
Texas, which has won three of its last four games, will counter with left-hander Andrew Heaney (0-3, 6.26), who is 0-1 with a 7.07 ERA in four career appearances (three starts) against the Nationals.
Washington’s anemic offensive performance was something of a surprise considering the bats were hot during a four-game series sweep at Miami over the weekend. The Nationals pounded out 40 hits, including six homers, and scored 33 runs against the Marlins.
“It’s just one game,” Martinez said. “We’ve been hitting the ball really well, so these guys will go back to the hotel and get some rest. We’ll come back and we will hit the ball like we did in Miami.”
Martinez also gave Texas starter Jon Gray credit for his team’s offensive woes.
“He really kept the ball down,” Martinez said. “He got a lot of called strikes down. The slider was really, really good. It’s almost like a cutter, so we couldn’t get the ball up.”
“He was on top of his game today,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said. “He just located real well tonight.”
It was the first win of the season for Gray. He gave up one run on three hits and struck out three in eight innings. He threw 98 pitches, 72 for strikes, and didn’t walk a batter.
“It was just being more comfortable with being over the middle of the plate, really,” Gray said. “I thought early on, the first four or five games, we’ve been off the plate, on the plate, on the plate, off the plate. Just getting behind guys and not really getting really deep into games, only going four or five innings. It was to the point I was getting sick of it. I’d rather give up a home run than walk a dude.”
Josh Smith and Leody Taveras both homered for the Rangers while Marcus Semien had a triple and a double and scored two runs. Smith, Semien and Nathaniel Lowe each finished with two hits.
One potential negative for the Rangers was that cleanup hitter Adolis Garcia was hit on the right wrist by a fastball from MacKenzie Gore in the sixth inning. Garcia, who leads the team in homers (eight) and RBIs (25), stayed in the game.
“I think he’s fine,” Bochy said. “I’ll check on him (Wednesday) and see if there is any swelling or anything. He got hit pretty good there. Hopefully he shows up tomorrow and he’s good to go.”
–Field Level Media
