Washington Nationals news & notes: Patrick Corbin 100th career W; 8-3 win over Rockies;

CORBIN’S 100th CAREER W:

Patrick Corbin earned the 98th win of his 12-year, big league career back on May 10th, in his eighth start of the season. Corbin, 35, got his 99th on July 19th, in his 20th outing of the ‘24 campaign.

On Thursday afternoon in the nation’s capital, Washington’s left-handed starter earned his 100th career W in the Nationals’ 8-3 win over the Colorado Rockies, going six strong on 95 pitches, 64 strikes, giving up four hits, a walk, and one earned run, on a solo home run.

“Regardless of how long it took, 100 wins is still a lot of wins,” Nats’ skipper Davey Martinez told reporters after his club took 2 of 3 in the series with the Rockies.

“So, congratulations to him and his family,” Martinez added. “What I can say about Patrick is, the guy, he competes. He goes out there every five days, takes the ball, will give us 110 pitches if we ask him to. He’s been awesome. He’s great in the clubhouse with the young guys, and he’s a big part of why our young guys are actually doing really good, he really is. Talks to them all the time, keeps them engaged. I can’t say enough about Patrick.

“So congratulations again. He’s been amazing. I know he wishes he had 150 wins, but he’s done well for us. Without him we don’t a World Series. That’s what I can say about Patrick. So let’s see if he gets a few more this year.”

“I wish it happened a while ago,” Corbin acknowledged after the win, as quoted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman. “It’s neat. I think I’ll look back on it.

“I’ve been around for a little bit to be able to do something like that. It’s pretty cool.”

Corbin struck out eight of the 22 batters he faced, in an efficient outing, picking up a total of 12 swinging and 14 called strikes, spread out fairly evenly between his slider, sinker, and cutter.

“His cutter was good,” Martinez said. “Used both sides of the plate, but his cutter was really good today. His slider was effective, but for the most part he kept the ball down. His two-seamer was really good down, so he got a lot of early swings and some effective strikeouts just using his fastball.”

Corbin also got plenty of support, with James Wood driving in two with a two-run single in the third, 2-0, Keibert Ruiz doubling to drive in a run in the sixth, 3-1, before Luis García, Jr. singling to drive in a run, 4-1, and José Tena adding an RBI single later in the sixth inning to make it a 5-1 game in the Nationals’ favor. Juan Yepez’s three-run blast in the 8th made it an 8-1 game.

Martinez said Wood’s two-run single, “was a big hit to get us on the board there,” and then, “… the offense kind of contributed throughout the whole game.

“Big home run by Yepez, which was awesome, but the last couple days they’ve swung the bat really well.”

GARCÍA, JR.’S BIG YEAR:

Coming off his 1 for 4, three-run home run night in the Nationals’ 6-1 win over the Rockies, Luis García, Jr., still just 24 years old though he’s been around for like, ever, has a .294/.329/.464 line, 22 doubles, and 15 HRs in 111 games and 405 plate appearances, over which he’s been worth a career-best and team-high 3.1 fWAR.

For a player who went to Spring Training this year needing to prove he deserved a spot on the big league roster, García, Jr.’s breakout season has been a real welcome and well-timed surprise.

“He has hit safely in 16 of his last 20 games,” the Nationals highlighted in their post game notes for Wednesday’s win.

“He is hitting .375 (27-for-72) with a .597 slugging percentage (4 2B, 4 HR), 12 RBI[s], six walks, four stolen bases, and 12 runs during this stretch.”

“He’s been great, he really has. I’m not talking just about the hitting,” Davey Martinez told reporters in his post game presser. “The defense has been a lot better, the baserunning has been a lot better, the overall game has been a lot better, but he’s putting the work in. I know I talked to him, I was a little bit hard on him in the beginning, but this is all him. He’s done the work, and he’s [reaping] the benefits right now. I’m going to keep him going, I want him to finish strong for the rest of the season, but he’s been great.”

García’s manager said the fifth-year vet, who has a combined .272/.304/.413 line in his career and a 162-game average of 32 doubles and 15 home runs, is really coming into his own, and as a reporter noted, he’s still pretty young.

“Pretty young? He’s young,” Martinez laughed. “He’s really young. He got here at an early age, but he’s starting to understand who he can be, and playing consistent, which is great. That’s all we can ask for is just consistency out of these guys, but he’s been doing all the things that we asked him to do over the years, and he’s really putting together a good year this year.”

Part of that maturity, is the consistency, with low periods over the course of the season, which don’t get as low as they may have in the past.

Photo by Jess Rapfogel/Getty Images

“He’s been focused on just working on just getting to that next at-bat,” Martinez said. “If something goes awry, he forgets about it. The big thing with him, he doesn’t carry it over. If he’s 0 for 2, he’s not carrying those two at-bats over, he’s trying to focus on the at-bat at hand, and trying to get to that next pitch. He’s been a lot better at that, and I think that just comes with maturity. We told him all along, ‘You can hit. We know you can hit. But you got understand what you can hit, what balls you can hit.’ So if all of a sudden he’s swinging at balls down, he knows right away, ‘Hey, I got to get the ball up. I really got to get the ball up.’ And he focuses on hitting the ball up. And then with two strikes, he’s been way better. Two strikes he just shortens up a little bit and really tries to put the ball in play.”

That ability to put failures behind him and keep pushing ahead, Martinez said, has been a key development for García.

“Sometimes it takes — as you know — it took Luis a couple years. But we knew he had it in him, and what he’s doing offensively elevates his game defensively. It goes hand-in-hand.”

García, Jr. went 2 for 4 in the Nationals’ 8-3 win on Thursday, and as the Nationals noted, he’s now, “… hit safely in 17 of his last 21 games…He is hitting .382 (29-for-76) with a .587 [SLG] (4 2B, 4 HR), 13 RBI[s], six walks, five stolen bases, and 12 runs during this stretch.”

SYKORA BIT:

“He was first round guy going into the year,” Kris Kline, then the Assistant GM and VP of Scouting Ops and now a Special Assistant to GM Mike Rizzo told reporters of 6’6” right-handed Travis Sykora after the Nationals selected the pitcher in the 3rd Round of the 2023 Draft.

“Over the summer he had some minor delivery issues,” Kline continued. “It was more effort, a little head-whack and recoil in his delivery. [He] really cleaned it up in a short period of time this year and it looks a lot more polished, a lot less effort now. He’s a kid that will reach triple-digits with his fastball. He’ll show you flashes of an above-average slider, a whipeout-type pitch that he’ll put guys away with. He’s got a split-finger that he’ll probably scrap and probably go to more of a traditional changeup in the end, but big body with a great arm and the makings of a plus slider.”

Pitchimh at Round Rock High School in Round Rock, TX, Sykora, “… struck out 108 batters in 58.0 innings (16.76 K/9),” as a senior, and, “allowed just seven earned runs on 22 hits (1.09 ERA) and issued only 15 walks (2.33 BB/9),” as the Nat’s noted in a press release on the selection.”

“He was ranked the No. 36 draft prospect by Baseball America and the No. 40 draft prospect by MLBPipeline.com.”

Washington took him with the 71st overall pick and signed him to a $6.2M bonus.

“We actually had a lot of history with him,” West Coast Crosschecker Marc Baca said of Sykora the night he was drafted, “… so going back a couple of summers ago, so he was on the radar, probably projected going into the year probably middle of the first round, so we feel very fortunate to have gotten him where we got him.”

Pitching at Class-A Fredericksburg as a 20-year-old this season, Sykora has put up a 2.47 ERA, 22 walks (2.71 BB/9), and 111 Ks (13.68 K/9) over 17 starts and 73 IP, and he’s been on a bit of a strikeout run the last few weeks with 10 Ks in three of his last five starts, over which he’s put up a 1.09 ERA and .119/.149/.155 line against.

“He’s a big physical pitcher out of Texas that we overpaid, gave him first-round money in the third-round a couple years ago,” GM and President of Baseball Ops Mike Rizzo told 106.7 the FAN in D.C.’s Sports Junkies this week when asked what’s going on down in Fredericksburg.

“He’s a projection right-handed pitcher that really developed fairly quickly. He’s an upper 90s [mph] guy, he’s touched a hundred a couple times. He’s got a good slider, a good changeup, good delivery. He’s a horse.”

And as good as he’s looked this season, Rizzo added, Sykora is, “just scratching the surface and starting to come into his own.”