After all that happened Wednesday night, Washington Nationals first baseman Adam LaRoche walked up to bat in the bottom of the ninth inning to erase all the mistakes.
The batter before him, Jayson Werth, tied the game with a one-out, two-run double off Los Angeles Angels closer Ernesto Frieri. Facing a new reliever, Fernando Salas, LaRoche laced the first pitch into left field for a 5-4, walk-off win over the Angels at Nationals Park to avoid a sweep. The Nationals scored four runs in the ninth on Jose Lobaton’s lead-off home run, Werth’s double on a 3-0 pitch to score Denard Span and Anthony Rendon, then LaRoche’s game-winner.
So much before the ninth inning was strange. Nationals starter Gio Gonzalez was cruising through the Angels’ lineup. At one point, he retired 11 straight batters and looked poised to help the Nationals get one win out of the three-game series. Then in the span of two batters in the sixth inning, the Nationals’ best starting pitcher so far this season gave up one run and was pulled from the game after only 83 pitches.
Gonzalez’s yanking wasn’t the game’s only head-scratching moment to that point. Three players tried to bunt for hits against Angels starter Jered Weaver, including Bryce Harper with two strikes and a runner at first base with no outs in a one-run game. Gonzalez’s relief, right-handed rookie Aaron Barrett, gave up a run on a wild pitch and his pitch count rose to 25 pitches in his second appearance in as many days — before he was allowed to face baseball’s best player, Mike Trout, despite two relievers warming in the bullpen. Harper half-jogged after hitting a grounder in the eighth but then raced safely to the bag when Angels first baseman Albert Pujols misplayed the ball.
Gonzalez entered Wednesday’s game as one of the few pitchers in baseball with marked success against Trout, who was 0 for 9 against him, all of the at-bats coming before his rapid emergence as an otherworldly player. In the first inning, Trout naturally doubled to right field with one out.
Pujols, who smashed two home runs in the Angels’ 7-2 win on Tuesday, then singled and Gonzalez walked Howie Kendrick to load the bases. This is when Gonzalez plugged the dam. Erick Aybar lined a Gonzalez fastball right at shortstop Ian Desmond, who threw to second baseman Danny Espinosa to double off Pujols.
With that boost, Gonzalez cruised through the next four innings. He used all of his pitches, even his underrated change-up. He pitched around a single and walk in the second inning. He used his 93-mph fastball high in the strike zone to finish off batters with two strikes and, on occasion, his wicked curveball.
Then Gonzalez’s night came to a screeching halt after two batters in the sixth. His streak of retired batters was snapped when he walked Trout on seven pitches to start the frame. After a first-pitch ball to the next batter, Pujols, pitching coach Steve McCatty visited the mound. Curiously, Barrett began warming in the bullpen.
On the sixth pitch of the at-bat, Gonzalez fired a low fastball to Pujols, who laced it down the third base line just out of Rendon’s reach. The ball hit the base of the stands and redirected into left field. Harper chased it down and fired home. Trout narrowly beat the high throw home with a slide, tying the game at 1. Then Williams emerged from the dugout.
Barrett got a quick groundout from Kendrick but then coughed up a run-scoring single to Erick Aybar. Barrett returned to the mound the next inning. And even after he allowed a run on a double and a wild pitch to make the score 3-1, then walked a batter with two outs, Williams still had Barrett face Trout with a high pitch count. Barrett got Trout for an inning-ending popout but walked off the mound after throwing 43 pitches in two days.
Against flyball pitcher Weaver, the Nationals resorted to the bunt more than normal. Rendon, the Nationals’ best hitter so far this season, dropped a bunt single in the first inning with one out. An inning later, Espinosa also dropped a bunt with one out. This time it led to a fruitful inning.
Espinosa stole second base and moved to third on Lobaton’s groundout. Gonzalez gave the Nationals their first run when he waited on a Weaver curveball and hit it to center field for a run-scoring single.
But for some reason in the sixth inning, Harper also turned to the bunt. Trailing by one run, LaRoche led off the frame with a single to right field. With a 2-2 count , Harper showed bunt and popped a ball up to catcher Chris Iannetta.
Four days after being bench for not running out a groundball, Harper nearly encountered the same situation in the eighth inning on Wednesday. With one out and trailing by two runs, he hit a groundball to Pujols, who misplayed it. Harper jogged out of the batter’s box but then raced down the line when he saw Pujols’ mistake. Harper was safe but it was too close a play.