Instant Analysis: Nats 7, Cubs 0

Cade Cavalli cruised through eight innings of one-hit ball, and the Nationals got another homer from Abimelec Ortiz to shut out Chicago

Photo by Andrew Banaz / ALL-PRO REELS

Cade Cavalli wasn’t perfect. But he was awfully close to it this afternoon in authoring the best start of his still-young career.

Carrying a no-hitter into the seventh inning, Cavalli ultimately tossed eight scoreless frames allowing one bloop single and two walks while striking out 10, thoroughly overwhelming a Cubs lineup that had worn down every other Nationals pitcher who took the mound the previous two nights.

And thanks to a mid-game offensive explosion highlighted by Abimelec Ortiz’s latest home run, the Nats supplied their ace with plenty of run support to salvage a victory in the finale of this three-game series.

Taking the mound the day before he turns 28, Cavalli was in peak form from the get-go, retiring the side on seven pitches in the top of the first. He shrugged off instructions from plate umpire Lance Barksdale to change his glove before the second inning and retired the side again, then did it again in the third. Nobody reached in the fourth or fifth inning, either.

By the time Cavalli took the mound for the sixth, he was working with the cushion of a 6-0 lead thanks to a sudden offensive explosion against Kevin Gausman. The Nationals scored five of those runs in rapid fashion, getting four straight two-out hits off the veteran right-hander, with Ortiz delivering the big blow in the form of a three-run homer.

Cavalli did allow his first batter to reach base in the top of the sixth, throwing four straight balls to Dansby Swanson. But he immediately erased that walk with a 3-6-1 double play and then shrugged off a pitch clock violation to strike out Miguel Amaya to end the sixth with 67 pitches and zero hits on the board.

Cavalli had no trouble retiring Pete Crow-Armstrong and Seiya Suzuki for the third time in the game to open the seventh inning, but then with two strikes and two outs and the crowd standing, Michael Busch blooped an opposite-field single to left in front of Daylen Lile to end the no-hit bid.

No matter, because he finished out the seventh and the eighth as well, striking out Michael Conforto on his career-high 103rd pitch to cap off a brilliant start before handing the ball to Clayton Beeter for the ninth.

HITTING HIGHLIGHT: Though the sample remains small, it is growing by the day. And there is more and more reason to get excited about what Ortiz is doing at the plate. The young first baseman homered into the third deck Wednesday night, and today he launched a three-run blast to right-center to highlight the Nationals’ five-run fifth. It’s only his 11th MLB game, and all but two of his at-bats have come against right-handers, but Ortiz now has four home runs, a .345 batting average and 1.160 OPS and has more than adequately replaced Luis García Jr.’s production to date.

PITCHING HIGHLIGHT: Cavalli already entered this start on a nice run, notching six consecutive quality starts in which he completed exactly six innings each time. He took it a step further today. It’s not only the lack of hits (and baserunners, until the sixth), it’s the efficiency with which he threw and the manner in which he flustered one of the toughest lineups in baseball. The Cubs didn’t have any shot against his breaking balls, either flailing at them or taking a whopping 17 of them over the plate for strikes. And this wasn’t about late-afternoon shadows, either. The first half of the game was played with an overcast sky, so the hitting conditions should have been fine for both teams. This was a burgeoning ace pitching like one and making some of the game’s best hitters look foolish.

NOTABLE: The Nationals have not named a starter for Saturday’s game against the Mets, but Blake Butera acknowledged they could go with Brad Lord (if he’s not needed prior to then) as the first arm in another bullpen game. The club has visions of slowly stretching out Lord to a starter’s workload as they attempt to fill the rotation vacancy created by this week’s decision to designate Miles Mikolas for assignment.

UP NEXT: The Nats hit the road for a nine-game trip to New York, Texas and Miami. It all starts Friday at 7:10 p.m. at Citi Field, where Andrew Alvarez will face Mets right-hander Robert Stock. TV: Nationals TV RADIO: 106.7 FM