PHILADELPHIA — The score aside — and the score was 19-4 in the end, a hide-your-eyes loss for the Washington Nationals — what mattered most was whether MacKenzie Gore felt okay. After the Philadelphia Phillies beat him for six runs in the third inning Saturday, Gore was visited by Paul Lessard, the Nationals’ athletic trainer, before they walked off together. On the television broadcast, it looked as if Gore repeated, “I’m all right,” inviting the team and its fans to exhale slowly.
“We went out there because he didn’t cover first base [on a potential double play earlier in the inning], so I thought maybe he did something to his ankle,” Manager Dave Martinez said. “Once I got out there, I saw him shaking his hand. He’s got like a little blister on his finger. I wanted to take him out and take a look at it. But he says he’s okay.”
Did that make it hard for Gore to pitch effectively?
“No,” Gore answered. “It’s always kind of something I deal with. So, yeah, I’m fine with that. It had nothing to do with what happened.”
Nothing else about Gore’s afternoon was particularly settling. His final pitch, a fastball that Cristian Pache crushed for a double, registered at 93.4 mph. His fastball averaged 95.1 on the day, his maximum velocity 96.5. Here, though, Gore was nine batters into a taxing frame, trying and failing to hold down far more experienced hitters. The mess started with back-to-back walks. It snowballed when the Nationals (33-49) couldn’t turn a double play on a sharp grounder to first, which Gore blamed himself for because he failed to cover first.
Then came three straight run-scoring swings: an RBI single by J.T. Realmuto, a sacrifice fly by Josh Harrison and a two-run homer by Alec Bohm. In turn, Gore’s ERA spiked from 3.89 to 4.48.
“The biggest thing is not getting over [to cover first],” Gore said, adding that he tried to pound the Phillies in and missed too many spots. “We talk about doing the little things right, and that can’t happen. Instead of getting two outs there, we only got one, and then it’s a sac fly after that. That sac fly would have been a lot different. Sometimes you get hit, but not getting over, that just can’t happen.”
Gore threw 36 of his 64 pitches in the third. He recorded eight total outs and yielded seven earned runs. So when Lessard left the dugout, before knowing that Gore was dealing with a blister on his middle finger, it was only natural to recall why he made just 16 appearances in 2022. After a dominant start to his rookie year, his left elbow tired and he hit the injured list with inflammation in late July. After the Nationals traded for Gore, they shut him down for the season, staying cautious with a pitcher they hope will anchor future competitive rotations.
Way back in spring training, Martinez mentioned keeping an eye on Gore’s workload. Heading into Saturday, he had topped 90 pitches in 14 of his 16 outings. He also has not missed a turn. Whether he will need to is a question for later this summer — for the Nationals’ front office and medical staff, for Gore to a lesser extent. But it certainly will be asked.
The finer details of Gore’s worst start of the season: He threw a lot of strikes early. Bryce Harper doubled in the second, lifting a fastball to the left field corner, before Bohm singled him in. When Gore’s command slipped, the Phillies pounced on him for that crooked number in the third, using three walks and four hits. Three of the hits came against his four-seam fastball. The other, a single by Nick Castellanos, was on a curve at the bottom of the strike zone. On the botched double play, Dominic Smith fielded the ball and threw a strike to shortstop CJ Abrams, who wound up before seeing that no one was covering the base.
After Gore exited, the Phillies (44-38) knocked around three young relievers. Their lines:
Amos Willingham (24 years old): nine batters faced, four outs, five hits (including two home runs) and four runs.
Joe La Sorsa (25): five batters faced, one out, four hits (including three bad-luck bloopers) and four runs.
Thaddeus Ward (26): six batters faced, two outs, two hits (including Kyle Schwarber’s grand slam) and four runs.
That’s how Philadelphia ran up the score, snapping the Nationals’ three-game wining streak in the process. Otherwise, Jose A. Ferrer, a 23-year-old lefty, made his major league debut and struck out two in a clean sixth. Then instead of pushing Cory Abbott into the eighth, Martinez used utility man Ildemaro Vargas, who did what Willingham, La Sorsa, Ward and Abbott couldn’t and logged a one-two-three inning. It was just one of those days.
“There’s another one in five days,” Gore said of how he will move past this start, “but understanding there are some things I did that [made] the outing the way it was. I just got to execute a little bit better.”