Josiah Gray was hot. He’d warmed up in preparation for the first pitch of the series opener with Atlanta in the nation’s capital, but a storm cell popped up over Nationals Park just as the game was set to start, and an hour and thirty-five-ish minutes later the teams took the field and began the first of three in D.C.
But Gray didn’t come out to the mound. Shortly before first pitch, Erasmo Ramírez, the Nats’ 32-year-old reliever, was announced as the “opener”, but it wasn’t until after the 9-5 loss to the Nationals’ NL East rivals that manager Davey Martinez shared his thinking in not sending the 24-year-old Gray out to there after the delay.