The burden of surpassing his first season in Washington may have felt like a burden for Gio Gonzalez, if only the notion of burdens fit into Gonzalez’s worldview. He is not the kind of person who dwells or worries. Let expectations soar. Let Major League Baseball investigate him. He will overwhelm an opposing lineup, drill a curveball through the chilling wind and smile as he floats around the bases.
Wednesday night, in the first start of his encore season, Gonzalez keyed the Washington Nationals’ 3-0 victory over the overmatched Miami Marlins with six shutout innings and the second home run of his career. Before 26,269 hunched against the cold, Gonzalez’s performance continued the giddy beginning to 2013 at Nationals Park, which has included two more curtain calls than runs scored by the visitor.
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Behind opening day ace Stephen Strasburg, Gonzalez and their reworked bullpen, the Nationals have opened the season with two straight shutouts – just the 13th team to accomplish that in major league history. They have blanked the underwhelming Marlins lineup for 18 innings while allowing only seven hits. New closer Rafael Soriano added a pinch of drama Wednesday, allowing a hit and walk to bring the tying run to the plate with one out in the ninth before securing his second save with a deep fly to center.
Bryce Harper notched two more hits, including an eighth-inning double that nearly knocked over the right field wall. The Nationals will lose a game soon. Two games in, as pitchers clobber homers and Denard Span cruises around center fielder and closer Soriano untucks his jersey, it just remains a bit difficult to see how.
For their second win, Gonzalez dominated in the same style that led to 21 wins and a third-place finish in the Cy Young vote in 2012. He allowed the Marlins two hits, striking out five while walking two. He twice whiffed slugger Giancarlo Stanton waving at curveballs that crashed into the dirt. He found trouble only once, allowing a leadoff double and a walk in the fifth inning, only to squirm out of it with a double play and a strikeout on his physics-defying curve. He wore short sleeves in the chill and spent most of his time between pitches blowing into his left hand to keep it warm.
“He knows the hitters a little bit better,” Manager Davey Johnson said prior to the game. “He knows where he wants to locate the ball. He was awfully good last year, but there’s still some room there to improve.”
He cruised on the mound, but he made a memory at the plate. Last season, Gonzalez hit the first home run of his career in Houston against the Astros. Afterward, Stephen Strasburg teased Gonzalez, telling him he would actually start to see breaking balls from opposing pitchers. And, in fact, after the homer, Gonzalez finished the season 1 for 21.
Slowey, then, could not be blamed for starting his fifth-inning encounter with Gonzalez with a 76-mph curveball. The curve hung, and Gonzalez, who bats right-handed even though he throws left, smashed it to left.
