MacKenzie Gore hopes to see more progress when he takes the mound for the Washington Nationals on Tuesday night in the second game of a four-game series against the visiting San Francisco Giants.
Gore (6-9, 4.54 ERA) made six starts in July and went 0-2 with a 7.62 ERA but showed improvement in his most recent outing, allowing three runs and eight hits in 5 1/3 innings while taking a loss against the Arizona Diamondbacks last Wednesday.
“We can build off that,” Washington manager Dave Martinez said. “Hopefully, he’ll finish the season up strong. I’m proud of him because he went through a lot this past month.”
Gore also said that he felt like he made strides in the right direction in his latest start.
“Hopefully, we’ll have a little bigger step forward next time out,” Gore said. “We’ll take care of what we need to take care of these next four or five days and get ready to roll.”
The Giants won the series opener 4-1 on Monday night.
The loss was the sixth in the past eight games for the Nationals, who are 7-9 following the All-Star break.
“We are better than we were, but there’s still a lot of things we need to work on,” Gore said. “We have to take advantage of these last two months as a group, come together and get some momentum going.”
Gore has made three starts in his career against San Francisco and is 2-1 with a 5.65 ERA vs. the Giants.
Keibert Ruiz had the best at-bat for the Nationals on Monday, drawing a 13-pitch walk in the sixth inning that led to Washington’s only run.
Ruiz doubled in his next at-bat to put runners on second and third with no outs in the eighth, but the Nationals couldn’t plate another run.
“His bat-to-ball skills are really good,” Martinez said of Ruiz. “It could wear on (San Francisco starter Logan Webb), plus it could be a confidence booster for Ruiz as well. He came back and hit a double to right-center field. I know it was right-handed, but still good at-bats can do that for you.”
The Giants plan to start rookie right-hander Hayden Birdsong on Tuesday.
Birdsong (3-0, 2.97) has won his first three major league decisions, including his past two starts, both against the Colorado Rockies.
The 22-year-old most recently pitched five shutout innings in a 5-0 win on July 27 in the second game of a doubleheader.
Birdsong’s performance followed a dominant outing by Blake Snell in Game 1, as the left-hander struck out 15 batters in six innings.
“I’m not left-handed, I’m not Blake Snell, but I still have a curveball,” Birdsong said. “That’s what (the Rockies) have struggled with in the last couple of outings we’ve had against them. They showed it again, that they keep struggling with it. Just throw strikes like Blake and try to get zeros.”
The win on Monday gave the Giants eight victories in their past 10 games.
Matt Chapman had a three-run blast in the series opener and has homered in three straight games. Tyler Fitzgerald has gone deep in each of the past two games and has 11 home runs in his past 17 games overall.
–Field Level Media
