Corbin's heavy dose of sliders the cure for Nats

WASHINGTON -- When the Nationals have needed a “stopper” this season, someone to almost single-handedly take the game into his own hands and halt a losing skid, they have routinely been able to lean on Patrick Corbin. It’s a luxury for a team that also employs Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg, to be able to lean on the “No.3” starter the way most teams would count on their ace.

Take last Thursday for example, when Corbin was responsible for stopping the Nats’ four-game losing streak with seven scoreless innings to beat the Dodgers. And with the Nationals scuffling heading into Wednesday night, Corbin was brilliant once again. He limited the Mets to one run in a season-high eight innings, striking out 11 without issuing a walk in a 5-1 victory at Nationals Park.

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“We have confidence with all our guys out there, but [Corbin’s] been doing some really good stuff lately,” first baseman Howie Kendrick said. “Eleven K's tonight, not only was he punching guys out, but he was getting outs when he needed them and he never really got in a jam tonight.”

Corbin started the night by striking out the side in the first inning, retiring Jeff McNeil, J.D. Davis and Robinson Cano all with his signature slider. Corbin threw his slider for 43 of his 108 pitches in this outing, generating 12 swinging strikes and a pair of called strikes on the night. Of his 11 strikeouts on the evening, nine of them were by a slider.

It’s no secret an at-bat against Corbin is going to feature a steady diet of sliders, and yet the Mets were flummoxed all night by the Nats’ lefty.

"He's able to throw that slider for a strike-to-ball and it's hard to lay off of it,” Mets manager Mickey Callaway said. “It's one of the best pitches in the Major Leagues. He had good fastball command as well, and he was kind of dotting that where he wanted to. And then he had a really good slider tonight. When he's got his good slider going, it's going to be a battle out there for the other team."

“He knows how to pitch,” Kendrick said. “Especially when he's getting ahead of guys and he can do whatever he wants after that. So, I think that was a big part of it tonight.”

The Nationals have gotten varying returns from their free-agent acquisitions this offseason: some good (Kyle Barraclough); some disappointing (Trevor Rosenthal, Brian Dozier); some mostly in-between (Yan Gomes, Kurt Suzuki). But Corbin remains their most significant signing of the winter.

And his ability to pick his team up after a loss is a major part of why they were comfortable handing him the largest free-agent contract of any pitcher this winter. In five starts following a team loss, Corbin is now 3-0 with a 2.18 ERA. The Nationals are undefeated in those starts.

“You always want to be that guy to take the ball and go out there and compete,” Corbin said. “Just try to put up as many zeros as I can, keep us in the game. [The offense] did a great job putting up five runs today. We are going to win a lot of games with the pitchers we do have here if they can continue to do that.”