Nats 'show heart' in 2nd straight comeback win

WASHINGTON -- As CJ Abrams grows, so do these Nationals, it seems. It’s no coincidence that Abrams’ best month in the Majors coincided with Washington’s most successful homestand of the season, which the team concluded with an improbable 5-4 walk-off win Wednesday afternoon over the Rockies at Nationals Park.

Down three runs entering the ninth, the Nationals benefitted from extreme wildness from Rockies reliever Daniel Bard, who walked or hit five of the eight batters he faced before Matt Koch replaced him and surrendered the game-winning single to Abrams. The result was the Nationals’ second consecutive dramatic come-from-behind victory in the late innings -- their fifth win in their past six games and their ninth in 14 contests.

“Most definitely we show heart as a team,” Abrams said. “It’s never over until it’s over, so we’re going to keep fighting until it is.”

The latest was further proof of Abrams’ development, almost exactly a year since the Nationals acquired the talented shortstop from San Diego as a centerpiece of the trade package for Juan Soto. Abrams is hitting .347/.400/.556 with three homers, four doubles, 19 runs scored and 11 stolen bases over his past 18 games, having batted leadoff in 15 straight of those.

“He’s playing with a lot of confidence right now,” Nats manager Dave Martinez said. “We’re giving him the leeway to get on base and the freedom to run when he has the opportunity. He’s having a lot of fun.”

At age 22, Abrams is tied for the youngest National/Expo to reach 10 home runs and 20 stolen bases in a single season, along with Andre Dawson, Delino DeShields and Victor Robles.

“He’s done really well. He’s maturing as we sit here, and [he] loves playing the game and loves leading off,” Martinez said. “Big moment for him and big moment for our team.”

Abrams was Wednesday’s unlikely hero only because Washington’s comeback was so improbable -- and it required serious assistance on Bard’s part. The veteran reliever has famously battled “the yips” -- a sudden and unexplainable loss of command that mysteriously affects some pitchers -- but he has been generally reliable for Colorado over the past two seasons, entering Wednesday with a 1.88 ERA across 91 appearances since the start of 2022.

But Bard didn’t have command of anything on Wednesday. He walked his first two hitters before a Joey Meneses single loaded the bases. Then with one out, he hit Dominic Smith to force in a run, and Stone Garrett followed with a run-scoring groundout. Rockies manager Bud Black decided to intentionally walk Luis García to load the bases -- creating a force at each base but shrinking the already-wild Bard’s margin for error. Bard then walked Ildemaro Vargas to force home the tying run, and after a pitching change, Abrams walked it off one batter later.

All told, Bard threw 16 of his 24 pitches for balls to the benefit of the notoriously free-swinging Nats. Washington entered play tied for last in the Majors in team walk rate.

“We told them to be patient,” Martinez said. “We told them, ‘You have to make him throw you a strike. … They were patient, and then CJ got a big hit for us.”