Josiah Gray kept looking for the one pitch that would extricate himself from the jam he found himself in during the first inning. A season ago, during an all-star campaign, that pitch was there when he needed it more often than not. At Nationals Park on Thursday, after an afternoon rain cleared into a brisk twilight, the Pittsburgh Pirates kept finding those pitches during a four-run first.
By the time Gray got out of the inning, the Washington Nationals were in a four-run hole and never recovered in a 7-4 loss. After two starts, he has an ERA of 14.04. The right-hander exited, head down as he walked to the dugout.
"Honestly, I'm embarrassed to come out here and do that for the guys," Gray said. "It doesn't feel good. It doesn't sit right with me. I know that I deserve better. They deserve better."
For as much as Gray found his ability to find the pitch in a jam last year, the mechanics that occasionally got him into those jams were on display Thursday. His misses forced catcher Riley Adams to jab his glove left, the ball tailing away in a start in which 29 of his 96 pitches, per Statcast, caught no part of the strike zone with a miss on that left side of the plate.
Gray, stoic after the game, said he doesn't have to "reinvent the wheel." When he got ahead in the count, the misses were forgivable.
But the start was tough. He opened the game by conceding a single through a hole in the infield to Oneil Cruz, followed by a bloop double to Bryan Reynolds. He was locating his fastball and change-up as Manager Dave Martinez requested, but balls kept finding holes. What Martinez didn't want to see was the repetitive misses far and away, which led to two walks in the inning, both of which led to runs after Reynolds and Cruz scored.
"I watch his head fly open, so his direction -- everything follows your head, so when your head starts flying open, he's going to go one way and the ball leaks arm-side," Martinez said. "So we've got to get his direction back, more consistent."
He needed 33 pitches to get out of the first inning. By the time he left with one out in the fifth, he had yielded seven hits, three walks and six runs, the last one coming after reliever Derek Law conceded a two-run homer after Gray's exit. Conversely, Pirates lefty starter Martin Perez needed just 85 pitches in 62/3 innings of work to stymie the Nationals (2-4), allowing two runs and six hits. He threw 61 strikes and 24 balls.
"He has good stuff that moves, and he's in the strike zone a lot," outfielder Lane Thomas said of Perez. "So I think on days that a guy like that's good, he's probably getting a lot of quick outs. And I also think later in that game, we probably were a little too aggressive. But sometimes that works in your favor. It's just one of those nights where it didn't."
The Nationals' offense fired with Joey Gallo's second-inning double, building off a breakout game the previous day, and Jesse Winker (team-high .429 average) singled him across two batters later, but the Nats went another 12 batters without a hit until CJ Abrams pulled his second home run of the year 415 feet to right-center in the fifth inning. Abrams has a .333 batting average, .407 on-base percentage and .667 slugging percentage in six games.
Washington threatened again with two outs in the eighth. Trey Lipscomb poked an RBI single down the first base line, and pinch hitter Luis Garcia Jr. followed with an RBI single past Pirates second baseman Jared Triolo to cut the deficit to three. But the surge stalled, and another series was lost.
Note: The Nationals recalled outfielder Jacob Young from Class AAA Rochester and placed outfielder Victor Robles on the 10-day injured list after the 26-year-old strained his left hamstring while running the bases in Wednesday's 5-3 win over the Pirates. Young and his wife began the drive from Upstate New York around 4 a.m. Thursday morning, and by 5:15 p.m. following a rain delay, the speedy 24-year-old was starting in center field and hitting ninth. He went 0 for 4.
Martinez indicated that the team didn't want to rush Robles back because his legs are particularly vital to his prowess as a base runner and fielder. Young, who will share time in center field with Eddie Rosario, offers a similar skill set to Robles.
Robles, who played just 36 games last year while dealing with a back injury, battled hamstring tightness during spring training.
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