Thoughts on a Tuesday filled with missteps
From Cade Cavalli's short start to the lineup's RISP woes to the demotion of Andre Granillo and DFA of Jackson Rutledge, this was a rough day
There was no one singular storyline today worth delving deep into, so let’s instead share some thoughts about multiple developments from this Tuesday, some of them directly related to the Nationals’ 11-3 loss to the Twins, some of them not …
CAVALLI TAKES A STEP BACKWARD
On the heels of back-to-back dominant starts, you wanted to believe Cade Cavalli had another one in him. You shouldn’t be surprised he didn’t.
Cavalli’s four-inning dud tonight wasn’t entirely his fault. He cruised through the game’s first five batters on only 11 pitches. He also suffered some more bad luck in the form of weakly hit groundballs that weren’t turned into outs and some long, quality at-bats by Minnesota’s hitters that drove up his pitch count.
But the right-hander still didn’t do enough to salvage the start when given the opportunity. He issued four walks, falling back into his command woes from earlier in the season. He committed an error on a little nubber between the mound and first base that led to three unearned runs. And he gave up a pair of two-run doubles, one of them to Trevor Larnich on an 0-2, two-out curveball.
Having seen his starter need 40 pitches just to complete the fourth inning, manager Blake Butera decided not to push Cavalli any further and pulled the plug there, even though his total pitch count was only 76.
