The ball scorched off Albert Pujols’s bat, and the Washington Nationals’ varied problems ceded briefly to history. Their slipshod defense, their propensity for early deficits, a suddenly slumping offense and the state of Taylor Jordan’s rotation spot momentarily faded as Pujols’s teammates streamed from the Nationals Park visitors’ dugout to meet Pujols. As Pujols stepped on home plate, he pointed two fingers to the sky.
In the Nationals’ vexing, 7-2 loss to the Los Angeles Angels, Pujols blasted two of Jordan’s pitches over the fence and became the 26th player to reach 500 home runs. His 499th homer helped bury the Nationals in a four-run hole after the first inning. No. 500, a missile over the visitors’ bullpen in left center, created another four-run lead for the Angels in the fifth inning.
Pujols tipped his helmet to the crowd as he waded through teammates back to the Angels dugout. The 21,915 fans at Nationals Park rose and cheered until Pujols emerged again, a curtain call for perhaps the best right-handed hitter of his generation, a slugger who reached 500 home runs at a younger age than anyone in baseball history than Jimmie Foxx or Alex Rodriguez.
The crowd shuffled out of the yard with a fond memory, but also a queasy feeling about its hometown team. The Nationals offered Jordan little support on either offense or defense. They added another two errors to their MLB-high total, both throwing errors by third baseman Anthony Rendon. Remarkably, the left side of the Nationals’ infield has committed more errors than 15 entire teams.
One night after they managed two runs on three hits, they scored two on three hits again, shut down for seven innings by left-hander Tyler Skaggs. The Nationals scored twice in the third, but failed to creep any closer into the game after Jayson Werth’s run-scoring double play with the bases loaded.
Lack of help or not, Jordan may have endangered his spot in the Nationals rotation allowing six runs, four earned, on eight hits in five innings. Tuesday afternoon, Doug Fister completed another successful step in his rehab from a lat strain, and he is on pace to return in two weeks.
Fister’s imminent return will force the Nationals to make the decision that Fister’s injury, late in spring training, delayed: Should Jordan or Tanner Roark claim their final rotation spot? Roark bolstered his cause Monday with 62/ 3 shutout innings, dropping his ERA to 3.80. Jordan’s ERA rose Tuesday to 6.23.
The damage started immediately, as has happened so often to the Nationals. As Rendon made his first error and Pujols ripped a three-run homer down the left field line, the Angels took a 4-0 lead before the Nationals had taken a turn at-bat.
Another remarkable figure: For the ninth time in 21 games, the Nationals allowed multiple runs in the first inning. The Angels reached base via double, error, home run, single and hit by pitch. Jordan may have trailed, but at least he hit a Yahtzee.
With home run No. 499 cleared, the umpires performed a small ritual each time Pujols stepped to the plate. They inserted a new ball into play, with a tiny “P” stitched into the horsehide above “Rawlings,” so MLB could authenticate which ball had become an artifact.
In 2010, still a St. Louis Cardinal, Pujols hit his 400th home run at Nationals Park, off Jordan Zimmermann on the day the Nationals announced Stephen Strasburg needed Tommy John surgery. And now he would have a chance to hit his 500th in Washington, too.
In the second inning, Jordan struck out Pujols swinging at a slider in the dirt. In the fifth inning, after Mike Trout lashed a single to left, Pujols lumbered to the plate again.
“It’s not the homers,” Nationals Manager Matt Williams had said Tuesday afternoon. “The 500 homers — and beyond, wherever he gets to — is not what sticks out to me. What sticks out is his ability to hit. Albert’s been, since the day he got to the big leagues, the consummate hitter, first and foremost.”
Jordan started Pujols with a fastball for a called strike. A ball and a foul drove the count to 1-2. Jordan tried to throw his sinker, but it stayed level and belt-high. Pujols smashed it, holding his iconic follow-through – chest proud, arms out – as the ball blazed through the chilly air and into the tables in front of the Red Porch.
Pujols’s milestone cemented the outcome, but the Nationals may have been in the game if their line rally hadn’t fizzled. Catcher Sandy Leon led off the third inning with a double to left. Jordan dropped a sacrifice bunt that and reached after every infielder, due to miscommunication, ignored the ball. Span walked to load the bases.
Skaggs’s change-up in the dirt scooted between Chris Iannetta’s legs, and Leon trotted home with the Nationals’ first run. With first base open, Skaggs hurled a 2-2, 79-mph curveball off Espinosa’s left calf, loading the bases again for Werth.
The Nationals had set themselves up for an immediate comeback: their No. 3 hitter at the plate with no outs and nowhere to put him. Werth rolled a 2-2 change-up to third base, and David Freese started a 5-4-3 double play. Jordan scored the Nationals’ second run, but the Nationals missed a chance and headed to the third still down, 4-2.
The Nationals would not come any closer. They could use history as a buffer for their problems for one night, but Wednesday, sitting at one game above .500, they would need to start figuring them out.