The Washington Nationals emerged victorious on Wednesday evening on a slightly rainy night in Queens over the New York Mets. After watching offseason acquisition Zack Littell get demolished by a Mets lineup that really needed a breakout performance on Tuesday night, the Nationals showed why their offense has been impressive so far this season.
They exploded with a 14-2 victory that had several highlights, most notably Brady House's grand slam to really put the game out of reach early on for the visiting team. After the Nationals were shut out on Tuesday night, their ability to rebound in such a dominant way was not only due to their bats, but due to their pitching as well.
Wednesday night's starter Cade Cavalli pitched phenomenally, as he turned in debatably his best start of the season despite allowing a season high in hits. He made it through 6.0 innings for the first time all season, and was able to fire 69 of his 97 pitches for strikes, while managing to scatter 8 hits for just 2 earned runs.
Most notably, he struck out 10 batters for the second consecutive start, and this put him in rarified air among Nationals royalty, as Mark Zuckerman pointed out on X. After striking out 10 batters in his last start, a loss to the Atlanta Braves, Cavalli has now struck out 20 batters over his last 11.0 innings, and has allowed only 2 walks. However, if he wants to take the next step, he will need to allow less traffic on the bases and hits overall.
Back-to-back 10-strikeout games in Nats history:
— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) April 30, 2026
Max Scherzer (20 instances)
Stephen Strasburg (6 instances)
Patrick Corbin
Gio Gonzalez
Cade Cavalli
Looking at this list really puts things into perspective about how difficult is to do what Cade Cavalli has done over his last 2 outings. When you look at those top 4 names, there is a very serious argument to be made that at least Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Gio Gonzalez all arguably had higher peaks than really any other starting pitcher in Nationals history (side note: Scherzer doing this 20 times with the Nationals is absolutely ridiculous).
Don't forget that Patrick Corbin was one of the best pitchers in baseball during the initial season of his long contract with the Nationals during their World Series run back in 2019, and now Cavalli joins this elite list of Nationals royalty. Hopefully, Cavalli can continue to build off this, as his turnaround so far has been encouraging to see overall.
Do you think Cade Cavalli has turned things around moving forward? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.
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