But Doyle’s were. From his perch on second base, he jumped and waved his hands as Finnegan delivered his final pitch. A half-second later, home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt stepped from behind home plate, tapped his wrist and delivered the call.
“Just immediately felt awful about letting the team down in that spot there,” Finnegan said. “To lose the game that way — it can’t happen.”
It was the first pitch clock violation to end a game in MLB history. It was Finnegan’s ninth pitch clock violation of the season, four more than any other pitcher. A few Nationals put their arms in the air, more in disbelief than dispute, as Coors Field roared. After the game, Finnegan said he was trying to focus on the pitch and location. At first, he didn’t know what Wendelstedt called because he thought the pitch was on time. But it was just a tick late.
“I think he leads the league in violations, so you’ve got to have some awareness,” Manager Dave Martinez said. “He could have stepped off. It’s a tough situation, something he’s got to be mindful of.”
“By the time I saw it, it was really too late to yell anything,” CJ Abrams said. “Probably couldn’t hear me anyway. It was loud out there. Just a weird ending. I don’t know.”
The Nationals (37-39) had endured plenty of the mile-high drama Saturday to reach that moment. They survived a three-run homer from second baseman Brendan Rodgers that gave the Rockies an early 4-2 lead and gave Mitchell Parker his first career outing with more than three earned runs; the ejection of Jesse Winker, who had disputed many a called third strike this season and finally got tossed by Wendelstedt after venting in the fifth; and leadoff moonshots in both the seventh (off Jacob Barnes) and eighth (off Hunter Harvey) that left Finnegan with a measly one-run advantage over the Rockies (27-50) in the ninth.
They ultimately couldn’t survive the pace of their nearly spotless closer — a methodical pace that Martinez said is integral to his success.
“I like to use the clock to my advantage, but I’ve got to make sure there’s one tick left,” Finnegan said. “I didn’t do that tonight and paid for it.”
“He’s just slow,” Martinez said. “I mean, that’s who he is. He’s the closer. It burnt him today, but typically it hasn’t burned him. … He’s been good, so I’m not going to fault him. Just one of those days you’re playing here. We’ll come back tomorrow. If we’ve got the lead, he’ll be in the game again.”
Parker, though, kept the game within reach. He conceded his first run when the defense couldn’t execute on back-to-back double play opportunities in the first. He stomached rare adversity when, following Abrams’s double and singles from Lane Thomas and Eddie Rosario that gave Washington a brief 2-1 lead in the third, Rodgers responded with a 436-foot three-run homer on a misplaced heater in the bottom of the frame that put Colorado ahead.
Parker kept his cool while lightly punching the palm of his glove, jabbed at the new ball as it arrived, and struck out the next batter. He ultimately gave the Nationals a shot (and preserved the bullpen) by completing six innings with eight strikeouts, including punch outs of the final five Rockies he faced.
Washington stayed in it, too, because of the top of its order, which has gone ablaze in June. Abrams homered in the fifth to cut the Nationals’ deficit to 4-3 and delivered an RBI single in the top of the seventh to tie it at 4. Thomas added his second go-ahead RBI single one batter later for a 5-4 lead. But Thomas and Abrams were then caught stealing, limiting much-needed insurance runs from ever arriving. An inning later, Luis García Jr. — for the second consecutive night — delivered a near dagger, his 438-foot two-run shot to straightaway center field providing an 7-5 advantage.
And while Barnes and Harvey each conceded a mammoth homer atop their respective innings — blasts that tied the game at 5 in the seventh and cut Washington’s lead to 7-6 in the eighth — they held on to deliver Finnegan a one-run lead in the ninth.
Finnegan hopes he gets another shot to close Sunday.
