The Washington Nationals were nine outs from a clean win, and for most of the night it looked like they had built one the right way. Andrew Alvarez gave them 6.0 scoreless innings, Clayton Beeter followed with 2.0 more shutout frames, and the Nats carried a 2-0 lead into the ninth.
Then everything unraveled.
Washington’s bullpen blew save No. 35 of the season, leaving the club two shy of matching the 2024 Chicago White Sox record of 37 and one behind the 2021 Washington Nationals, who finished with 36. What followed in the final inning was a six-run Marlins burst and a 6-2 loss that felt as ugly as the scoreline suggests.
Manager Blake Butera handed the ball to Max Kranick to close it out, but Miami immediately put him under pressure with a perfect bunt single. Kranick then allowed two more runners, and with one out the bases were loaded. Butera turned to left-hander Tom Cosgrove, who hit the first batter he faced in a lefty-lefty matchup, forcing in a run and cutting the lead to 2-1.
The next Marlins hitter lifted a sacrifice fly to tie the game. On that same play, Andrew Pinckney, who had entered in center field, fired toward third base with urgency and missed badly.
The throw sailed into the dugout, and two more runs scored to make it 4-2 Miami. Jorbit Vivas didn’t make a play on the throw, and Cosgrove was slow to back it up.
It was a mess from start to finish.
Vivas had already committed a fielding error earlier in the game, and he nearly had another when a 112 mph grounder wasn’t handled and was scored a hit. He also had a rough moment on the bases in the third inning, getting caught straying off third on a comebacker to the third baseman.
The Marlins were not finished with Cosgrove. He later allowed a two-run homer, pushing the final to 6-2 and sealing the blown-save-loss in brutal fashion.
The bullpen had been worked hard, but Will Dion had not pitched in three days, raising the question of why he never got the call. Those are the kind of decisions only Blake Butera can explain. In back-to-back games, Cosgrove ended up taking the blown save.
For Washington, the wasted effort stung. Alvarez lowered his ERA to 3.47, and both he and Beeter did their jobs. So did most of the roster, at least until the ninth inning turned a winnable game into another reminder of how quickly one sloppy frame can erase everything else.
The loss snapped the Nationals’ modest three-game winning streak, and it came one day after a walk-off win that had felt like the perfect swing in the other direction.
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