The Nationals beat the Angels 4-3 with an eighth-inning rally

This season, the Nationals have produced one of the top offenses in baseball by slugging their way to wins and wearing down opposing pitching staffs.

Since the trade deadline, that offense — and the power production — has slowed down. But on Friday night Washington defeated the Los Angeles Angels 4-3 by passing the baton to the next hitter via late-inning small ball.

The eighth inning opened with a Brady House walk, followed by a CJ Abrams bloop single. Dylan Crews placed a sacrifice bunt down perfectly and loaded the bases when Angels pitcher Samy Natera Jr. got caught in no-man’s-land.

Two batters later, Andrew Pinckey hit a sacrifice fly to tie it. Then Jorbit Vivas hit a two-run double down the right-field line that put the Nationals ahead.

“I knew it would get down and, once it did, was fired up, obviously,” manager Blake Butera said. “Huge hit for us, at a big time when we needed it.”

For most of the season, Washington has operated by winning with a few big blows. On Friday at Nationals Park, its win came via a series of small ones to snap a seven-game losing streak.

“We’ve also won a lot of games because of home runs and scoring eight, nine, 10 runs a game,” Butera said. “But you got to be able to win games in different ways, and I think we did a good job of that tonight, playing really good baseball.”

The win didn’t come without drama. In the ninth, the Angels’ Christian Moore hit an RBI double to cut the lead to one. But Erik Tolman recorded the final out to earn his second save.

Entering the eighth inning, the Nationals had only three hits, threatening to spoil another strong start from Cade Cavalli.

In the first inning, he threw a cutter just outside of the strike zone that Mike Trout laced into center field for a solo homer. In the fourth, he hit Trout with a pitch.

Outside of those two at-bats, the Angels’ went 0-for-17 against Cavalli through the sixth inning. The only other baserunner who reached was Josh Lowe, who was hit with a pitch in the sixth. Cavalli even struck out Trout in his third at-bat, his ninth and final strikeout of the evening.

Then Cavalli lost command in the seventh and walked the first two batters before Moore hit an RBI single and the pitcher’s evening was finished. To that point, the Nationals trailed 2-1 with little offense outside of a James Wood fourth-inning RBI single.

The Nationals had struggled to hit for power since winning the World Series in 2019. They ranked in the bottom third of the league in home runs and slugging percentage since 2020.

This season, thanks to the development of their hitters and a shrewd internal addition (Curtis Mead), the Nationals blossomed under the team’s new coaching staff.

They’re third in the major leagues in homers (198), behind the Chicago Cubs and the New York Yankees. They have 10 players with double-digit homers with the team, and eight of them have set career highs. In July, the Nationals hit 50 homers in just 24 games.

But the Nationals traded Mead and Luis García Jr., who combined for 40 homers in a Washington uniform, near the trade deadline. Wood, who has 30 homers, suffered an oblique injury the day of the deadline. Even in his return, the offense’s performance has been notable.

Washington has hit 34 homers since the start of August. In September, it has hit six, tied with the Seattle Mariners for the fewest in the month.

On Friday, the Nationals held meetings for a handful of position players as they looked ahead to the offseason. Butera said a recurring message was adding strength, which results in higher bat speeds and velocity. The staff showed players videos of outs that could’ve been homers with a bit more velocity.

Once the game began, there were more examples. In the fourth inning, after Wood’s RBI single, Andrés Chaparro hit a 345-foot flyout that would’ve been a homer in three parks. The next inning, Dylan Crews launched a 322-foot flyout. Yohandy Morales added another, this one 363 feet, that didn’t find the seats.

As the Nationals look ahead to next season, they’ll have to find ways to produce power outside of Wood and Abrams. Fortunately, the final few weeks give them an opportunity to see what’s available on their roster. And on Friday some of those pieces helped turn the game around, one swing at a time.

“The most important thing is to get the runs in, to bring runners in,” Vivas said through interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. “Doesn’t matter if it’s a home run, single, double. Just got to get good at-bats and get good results.”

Notes

• Catcher Harry Ford exited the game in the eighth inning with a left hand/wrist injury, but Butera didn’t have details on the diagnosis. He said the team would know more tomorrow.
• After pitching a scoreless eighth inning, reliever Clayton Beeter was optioned to Triple-A Rochester.

This article has been updated.