Instant Analysis: Diamondbacks 5, Nats 1
Cade Cavalli gave up a pair of homers, while Michael Soroka hardly gave up anything in denying his former a team a weekend sweep
PHOENIX – The Nationals desperately hoped Michael Soroka would pitch well enough for them last season to be a consistent threat and workhorse for their rotation. That never really came to fruition, but today they saw how the right-hander has managed to take that next step during a dominant performance against them.
Soroka allowed only one run on three hits over seven standout innings, out-pitching Cade Cavalli and denying the Nats a shot at a weekend sweep at Chase Field. They still won their fourth straight road series, but they’ll head to San Francisco back at the .500 mark after dropping today’s finale.
Soroka had all kinds of trouble sustaining success for six innings last year while pitching in D.C. But he’s become a workhorse in Arizona, now 8-3 with a 3.28 ERA and having now reached the seventh inning four times in 13 starts. Only CJ Abrams got to him this afternoon, leading off the top of the second with a home run down the right-field line. Otherwise, the bats were kept silent by the 28-year-old, who was traded to the Cubs last summer for prospects Christian Franklin and Ronny Cruz.
Cavalli was hurt by a pair of home runs surrendered, one by Corbin Carroll and one by Gabriel Moreno, during a five-inning start that saw the Nationals right-hander pitching with traffic on the bases throughout. Riley Cornelio, back in the big leagues six weeks after making his debut in Chicago, gave up one run in two innings of relief.
HITTING LOWLIGHT: The Nats just never really got anything going against Soroka. James Wood drew a couple of walks, but his teammates couldn’t bring him home, with Luis García Jr. grounding into a first-inning double play and fouling out on the first pitch he saw in the third. Dylan Crews smoked a 111.2-mph line drive in the fourth … but directly at shortstop Geraldo Perdomo. José Tena, getting a rare start at second base, went 0-for-3. Outside of Abrams’ early homer, there just wasn’t much of anything worth talking about at the plate today.
PITCHING LOWLIGHT: The Diamondbacks didn’t make a lot of loud contact off Cavalli; he gave up three singles in the bottom of the fourth, none of them carrying an exit velocity higher than 70 mph. But they did make really loud contact twice, and those were the hits that did in the right-hander. Carroll drove a first-inning curveball onto the pool deck in right-center. And Moreno hammered a fifth-inning changeup down the left-field line and into the home bullpen for a two-run shot. Thus did Cavalli get charged with four earned runs for only the second time this season.
NOTABLE: Cornelio’s second big-league appearance went better than his first one did, but he’s still got work to do if he wants to prove he can stick up here long-term. The 26-year-old rookie put five runners on base during his two innings, three of them via walk. He managed to limit the damage, but his lack of command (especially his slider) was apparent, with only 25 of his 44 pitches today landing for strikes.
UP NEXT: It’ll be about 40 degrees colder in San Francisco when the Nats open a three-game series with the Giants on Monday at 9:45 p.m. EDT. It’ll be Miles Mikolas against Logan Webb at Oracle Park. TV: Nationals TV RADIO: 106.7 FM
Tip of the hat to Soroka