Coming off a few solid outings, which followed a skipped turn in the rotation, and coming out of the All-Star Break, rookie starter Jake Irvin struggled with his command, threw a lot of pitches in three innings (79), and was out early in what ended up a 9-6 loss to the Cardinals last week in St. Louis.
“[Irvin] had almost 80 pitches in three innings,” Nationals’ manager Davey Martinez said of his decision-making in lifting his starter relatively early, “… and for me he’s part of our big future ahead of us, and I thought that was good enough for him.