Wacky Wednesday? Nats fall after chaotic 10th

MIAMI -- A succinct description painted the picture of a chaotic bottom half of the 10th inning.

“A ball hits the base. A bloop hit. A close play at home. Just bad breaks,” manager Dave Martinez said following the Nationals’ 2-1 loss to the Marlins Wednesday at loanDepot park.

As Josiah Gray delivered five innings in his start and Sandy Alcantara dazzled over nine, the Nationals and Marlins held each other scoreless in a game that would need extra frames to be decided. When Keibert Ruiz dropped an RBI single into right-center field to plate Luis García (the automatic runner on second base) in the top of the 10th, the Nats needed three outs from closer Tanner Rainey to wrap up a win.

Instead, a head-turning sequence of events unraveled that left the Nationals walking off the field amid a Marlins’ walk-off celebration. Let’s take a look at three key moments from the unexpected extras.

Starting (to close) out smoothly
Rainey took the mound for the first time since Saturday in pursuit of his eighth save of the season. The Marlins began the 10th inning with Jazz Chisholm Jr., who ranks in the 95th percentile of all players in sprint speed, on second base. Rainey got Garrett Cooper to line out to right field -- two more outs to go.

The play at the plate
Willians Astudillo stepped up to the plate to pinch-hit for Luke Williams. Rainey worked an 0-2 count on a pair of sliders before Astudillo dropped a fastball into right. As Chisholm dashed around third, Soto fired the ball to Ruiz at home in hopes of nabbing the tying run.

The call on the field was that Chisholm missed the plate and was tagged out by Ruiz, but the play was reviewed to determine whether Chisholm had made contact with the plate and whether Ruiz’s positioning on the baseline had been within the rules. The call was overturned for Ruiz blocking the base path, and Chisholm was ruled safe.

“Those things are going so fast that you can't tell the angles from there if he's out in front of the plate,” said Marlins manager Don Mattingly. “I'd like to tell you that I could process all that and just know that's where we go right to replay. Have them make sure they check the catcher part and if he got his hand in there or not.”

The play left the 23-year-old Ruiz taking the moment as a lesson, noting that in the future he could adjust his positioning on the base path to prevent the situation from happening again.

“That’s something that I found out at the end when they were announcing it,” Ruiz said. “I wasn’t aware of it. It’s something I didn’t feel I did in the moment, but it’s something that you learn from.”

A bounce to end the game
The Nationals found themselves in a tie game with one out in a runner in scoring position -- Astudillo had reached second base on the play at the plate. Jesús Aguilar connected on a single that sliced directly to second, then bounced off the bag and jumped sideways into the outfield.

“The ball’s going right to César [Hernández] -- and it hit the base,” Martinez said.

Astudillo beat out Victor Robles’ throw from center to seal the Marlins’ victory.

“You’ve got to play the game,” Martinez said. “You start off with a guy on second base, right, and you’ve just got to play the game the way you see fit. We felt like we had the right matchup with Rainey out there with those guys, and we did. A two-strike jam shot that blooped in there and then a ground ball that hit the base. What are you going to do, really? We’ve got to forget about it, come back tomorrow, try to score early and score often and come out here tomorrow with a victory.”