Riley Cornelio making strong case for role on 2027 Nationals

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The coaching staff’s message to the entire Nationals rotation, but especially Riley Cornelio, has been simple: Trust your stuff in the strike zone.

Executing that message is complex.

“When he’s in the zone I think his stuff plays, and that’s what I told him after that San Diego outing,” manager Blake Butera said. “We’ve been telling you, like look at the line he just faced. You know, [Fernando] Tatis Jr., [Manny] Machado, Ty France, [Jackson] Merrill — all these guys — and he just mowed right through them.”

Cornelio excelled again in Sunday’s 6-5 win over the Los Angeles Angels. He leaned on his wipeout slider and cutter, stayed in the zone and struck out four with one walk. The message is starting to sink in for the young righty.

“When you come up here and you just have a lot of people in your corner and a lot of support, and you feel like you hear them over and over say, ‘We believe in you, and we believe your stuff is that good,’ at a certain point you start to believe it,” he said. ”Hopefully, that’s a good corner to turn and can, you know, get some more opportunities to prove it."

Whether it’s a hitter or pitcher, the Nationals want players to capitalize on their strengths. Butera said he wants players to understand that “we called you up for a reason.” Cornelio has struggled with throwing strikes. It’s been a detriment at times for him in the majors, although he was aggressive at Triple-A Rochester.

Facing major league hitters, particularly stars with loaded résumés, is more challenging. Throwing strikes to established hitters could result in loud contact, which is why pitchers sometimes try to elicit chase outside the zone. But walks are more damning for a team.

Issuing free passes leads to a smaller margin for error. The Nationals have been burned this season by walks and then allowing crushing multirun homers. Walks have plagued Cornelio in particular. He entered Sunday with a high walk rate (18.1%).

But something clicked for him in his last outing against San Diego, when he struck out four of the nine batters he faced with no walks. What was more impressive was how he navigated a lineup with proven stars.

Cornelio said his issues at the beginning of the year were with a lack of weapons and execution. He said he worked on a cutter at Triple-A and it has complemented the slider. Twenty-six percent of his pitches Sunday were cutters.

“I think some guys maybe see slider, and it’s not anymore,” Cornelio said. “It’s a hard cutter, and that pitch has helped me a ton with setting up a slider, whether it be just having a pitch that I can lean on in a count where they’ve seen both of them and now being able to come back with that pitch.”

When Cornelio is on the attack, his stuff plays and he gives the Nationals an intriguing option out of the bullpen. Though Butera didn’t close the book on Cornelio — who matriculated through the system as a starter — making the rotation in the majors.

“I know we’ve messaged to him that we wanted to see him come out of the bullpen,” Butera said. “He did really well in Triple-A at that. I think, up here, he’s still trying to navigate what that looks like. But, like I said, the more sample size we can get of him doing a couple different roles, the more clarity I think we can give him.”

Against the Angels, Cornelio maneuvered his way around a situation with runners on first and second with one out. He struck out Vaughn Grissom and induced a flyout to right field to escape without any runs.

It’s impressive that Cornelio rebounded from his disastrous major league debut, in which he allowed three runs (two earned) on two hits with four walks in relief.

Before his debut, Cornelio had never pitched in relief in his professional career.

“I don’t think we put him in the position to have success by not doing it before that,” Butera said.

But experiencing those challenges strengthened Cornelio’s resolve. He’s now opened games and pitched multiple times in relief. He has tantalizing velocity that bodes for a bright future, as long as he harnesses it in the zone.

“I think it’s just building resilience,” Cornelio said of pitching in a variety of roles. “I feel like those things happen for a reason, and [I’m] just able to feel like I can use that moving forward.”

This article has been updated.