Before the game, Washington worked on pitchers covering first base on certain grounders. Naturally, when the situation occurred in the game, the pitcher never budged off the mound.
Another common play — a double over the center fielder’s head, resulted in another broken Little League rule: nobody covered second base.
After two games it’s clear: the Nationals are struggling with their fundamentals. This time, it resulted in a 9-3 loss to visiting Florida. The Nats only committed two errors, but a handful of other mistakes and misplays contributed to the loss and didn’t help starter Shawn Hill.
“We all know we played worse defense than two errors,” manager Manny Acta said. “It takes more than that to frustrate me.”
Reliever Ray King, who failed to cover first on a grounder in the hole, said, “It’s frustrating because we’re 0-2; as a staff we gave up nine runs regardless of the errors or mental errors.”
The lone highlight for Washington, which fell behind 4-0 in the first, involved rookie Kory Casto, who was recalled earlier in the day.
The Nationals placed center fielder Nook Logan (hyperextended foot) and shortstop Cristian Guzman (mild left hamstring strain) on the 15-day disabled list. They also purchased the contract of infielder D’Angelo Jimenez from Columbus.
“I love Kory, he’s a great kid,” Nationals general manager Jim Bowden said. “The fans in D.C. will love Kory because he plays the game the right way; he’s a gamer and he has a big heart. He has as good an attitude as you’ll find in a player.”
Casto recorded his first big-league hit in the fourth inning.
The Nationals called him at 9 a.m. Tuesday with the news. He was on a private jet within a few hours; his wife drove to Washington in time for the game.
“It’s been pretty crazy,” said Casto, who started in left and batted second last night and recorded his first major league hit in the fourth inning. “If you want it to happen, you want it to happen in a way you’ll remember it.
“It’s pretty exciting, knowing that one of your goals in life will be accomplished.”
The 26-year-old Casto understood why he didn’t make the team out of spring training. That doesn’t mean it was easy.
“It was a little tough, but that’s the way baseball is,” he said.”I was gonna go down to AAA and show them that I at least could be one of the guys who could come up and help them out. … I didn’t expect to be up here this soon.”
