Cade Cavalli enjoys best outing of his career as Nationals blank Cubs

Cade Cavalli punched his glove as Michael Busch’s opposite-field bloop single dropped to end his no-hit bid after 6 2/3 innings.

The cruelty of baseball. Cavalli was aggressive in the at-bat, threw his fastball in the strike zone, and Busch’s quality of contact was poor. The ball still fell for a base hit. The process was right, but the outcome was suboptimal for the right-hander, who will turn 28 Friday.

But Cavalli shouldn’t lower his head or be disappointed in his performance. He authored the best outing of the season for the Nationals, throwing eight shutout innings, allowing one hit and one walk with 10 strikeouts in a 7-0 win over the Chicago Cubs on Thursday at Nationals Park.

He joined Max Scherzer as the only pitchers in team history to record two or more games of at least seven innings pitched with one hit or fewer and 10 or more strikeouts. Cavalli achieved those benchmarks in his June 30 start against Boston.

He flummoxed the Cubs all afternoon and was nearly untouchable in the strike zone. In the fourth inning, Cubs star center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong didn’t argue. He didn’t dispute the call.

He instead shouted an expletive as he walked away from home plate, resigned to the fact that Cavalli’s knuckle curve was in the zone for a called strike three. But it wasn’t just Crow-Armstrong, the Cubs’ young MVP candidate, who had difficulty with Cavalli.

The entire Cubs offense struggled against Cavalli, who’s getting better as the season progresses. Cavalli threw five perfect innings against one of the most formidable lineups in baseball before he walked Dansby Swanson in the sixth.

But an impressive double-play turn kept his no-hitter alive and his pitch count low. After a pitch-clock violation evened the count 2-2, he struck out Miguel Amaya with a 98.9 mph fastball to end the inning. Cavalli jogged to the mound for the seventh having thrown just 67 pitches.

This is the kind of outing that enamors team officials of Cavalli’s potential.

He was aggressive in the zone, trusting he could overpower this Cubs lineup. Cavalli has been superb in what’s essentially his first major league season. Injuries besieged him early in his career, robbing him of precious development time.

Now that he’s finally healthy, he is thriving, which has to leave the Nationals (60-63) thrilled.

Connelly Early’s recovery from elbow inflammation and elbow tightness and Jackson Kent’s acclimation to the majors are high on the organization’s priority list. But Cavalli’s ascension shouldn’t be an afterthought. He has performed like a front-line starter.

Cavalli entered Thursday with a 2.70 ERA in the second half. On the season his strikeout and walk rates are strong for a starter, and he’s inducing a good amount of ground balls (50.8%). His velocity was up across the board Thursday, and he landed his off-speed and breaking balls for strikes, which opens up his pitching arsenal.

As the Nationals attempt to increase velocity in the arms in the farm system, Cavalli’s outing was a reminder that there are certain types of arms that can’t be replicated.