There’s no other way to say it: Nationals right-hander Reynaldo Lopez was electric in an 8-2 victory over the Braves on Thursday night at Turner Field.
It started with Lopez’s fastball, which was clocked as high as 98 mph. He ended up with 11 strikeouts in seven innings, while allowing two runs (one earned) on four hits. It was the first double-digit strikeout game of Lopez’s career, and he is just the fourth rookie in Nats history to strike out at least 10 in a game.
Braves right-hander Rob Whalen also turned in a solid outing. He pitched six innings, allowing three runs (one earned) on three hits and struck out six batters.
It looked like Whalen was going to get out of the first inning unscathed, but Anthony Rendon hit a routine fly ball to left fielder Matt Kemp, who dropped the ball as Trea Turner and Bryce Harper scored to give Washington a 2-0 lead.
The Nationals took a 3-1 lead in the fifth when Pedro Severino scored on a double by Jayson Werth, who extended his on-base streak to 46 games to tie Rusty Staub’s franchise record.
Things turned ugly for Atlanta in the eighth, when the Nationals put the game away with five runs off relievers Arodys Vizcaino and Mauricio Cabrera.
In their previous three games, the Nationals’ bullpen pitched a combined 18 1/3 innings against the Rockies. Lopez gave the bullpen exactly what it needed. He pitched seven strong innings, before Shawn Kelley and Mark Melancon blanked the Braves over the final two frames.
The Braves recognize the concerns about Kemp’s defense in left field, but the veteran’s inability to secure Rendon’s routine fly ball with two outs in the first inning appeared to simply be a lapse in concentration that accounted for two unearned runs. Whalen retired 10 of the next 11 batters he faced, but he encountered some misfortune when Werth got his bat on a 3-2 slider and then watched his decisive RBI double hug the left-field line.
