August 27, 2024: Dylan Crews’ first hit, Patrick Corbin’s pitching spark Nationals 4-2 win over Yankees

The New York Yankees are in town! According to Forbes, they were worth $7.55 billion in 2024, more than any other major-league team.1 Their business reach is international in scope, matched on the playing field with 27 World Series championships, more than any other franchise. That this August evening brought a large crowd (34,334) to Nationals Park was not surprising.

With the best record in the American League at 78-54, the Yankees surely had another World Series in mind as the calendar moved closer to the 2024 playoffs. No such destination loomed for the 59-73 Washington Nationals, but two of baseball’s top prospects had recently joined their lineup, left fielder James Wood and right fielder Dylan Crews. The 21-year-old Wood had been promoted from Triple A in July. Crews, 22, made his major-league debut on the previous evening in the first game of the three-game series, a 5-2 Yankees’ win.

Crews and LSU teammate Paul Skenes led the Tigers to the 2023 College World Series title. Crews, the 2023 Golden Spikes Award winner as the nation’s best amateur player, was the second overall pick in MLB’s July 2023 draft after Skenes was selected first by the Pittsburgh Pirates.2

There always seems to be an extra buzz in the air whenever the Bronx Bombers are in town.3 The return of former Nationals superstar Juan Soto as a Yankee certainly had something to do with that. In fact, the Washington Post even noted that “a handful of players compared the night to a playoff atmosphere.”4

Besides Soto’s presence in right field, Nationals fans had another reminder of the 2019 World Series, the pitching matchup between New York’s Gerrit Cole (5-2, 3.72 ERA) and Washington’s Patrick Corbin (3-12, 5.73 ERA). The Nationals beat Cole and the Houston Astros in Game One in 2019, but five days later, Cole returned the favor with a masterful three-hitter over seven innings for a 7-1 win in Game Five at Nationals Park.

Within weeks of the Nationals’ World Series triumph, the Yankees signed Cole to the richest contract ever given to a pitcher, $324 million over nine years. When the pandemic delayed Opening Day of the 2020 season until late July, it was Cole who triumphed at an empty Nationals Park with a 4-1 rain-shortened five-inning one-hitter.5 Cole went on to win the AL Cy Young Award in 2023, but in 2024 the 33-year-old right-hander was sidelined until June with an elbow injury.

Meanwhile, Corbin was one of the 2019 World Series heroes for the Nationals with his Game Seven three-inning relief appearance in the first season of his six-year, $140 million free-agent contract.6 Corbin (14-7, 3.25 ERA) and Stephen Strasburg (18-6, 3.32 ERA) led the starting staff through the 2019 regular season with 33 starts each. Now in the final season of that contract, Corbin readied to pitch against the Yankees with a 5.73 ERA, worse than any other qualified starting pitcher in the majors.7

The Nationals took the early lead in the second inning, and Crews was right in the middle of the action. With one out, third baseman José Tena singled to center, bringing Crews to the plate. The rookie lined Cole’s cut fastball to the left-field wall for a double, his first major-league hit, advancing Tena to third. Tena, a 2024 trade-deadline acquisition from the Cleveland Indians for Lane Thomas, scored the game’s first run on Joey Gallo’s groundout to second base.8

In the fourth inning, the Nationals wasted no time adding to their lead with back-to-back solo home runs. Another trade-deadline acquisition, Andrés Chaparro, led off against Cole with his first major-league home run, deep down the left-field line.9 On the very next pitch, Tena homered to right-center. Nationals 3, Yankees 0. Just one night earlier, Aaron Judge had robbed Chaparro of that first home run with a spectacular catch in center field leading to an inning-ending double play.10

Meanwhile, Corbin was quietly building his best performance of the season. With two outs in the first inning, Judge lined a double down the right-field line, but Corbin struck out Giancarlo Stanton swinging to end the threat. Gleyber Torres’ walk in the third, Stanton’s harmless single to left one inning later, and Judge’s walk in the sixth were the only other baserunners Corbin allowed on his 104 pitches.

Corbin left the game with a 4-0 lead when the Nationals added a run in the sixth against relief pitcher Tim Mayza, helped by some sloppy defensive play by the Yankees. With one out, Crews’ second career hit was a swinging bunt, and he advanced to second on catcher Jose Trevino’s wild throw. Crews stole third on the next pitch and scored when first baseman DJ LeMathieu mishandled Gallo’s smash for another error.

How good was Corbin’s six innings worth of work? In his 27th start of the season, the 34-year-old lefty had now pitched at least six innings on 13 occasions. This was the first time he had shut out the opposition and allowed as few as two hits. Of course, the game wasn’t over and the Nationals bullpen needed to get nine more outs for the win.

Eduardo Salazar replaced Corbin to begin the seventh inning, but when a one-out single by Anthony Volpe and a walk to pinch-hitter Austin Wells put two runners on, manager Davey Martinez brought in Jose A. Ferrer, who induced Alex Verdugo to ground into an inning-ending double play.

The Nationals needed another bullpen tag team to escape the eighth inning relatively unscathed. Two singles off right-hander Jacob Barnes and second baseman Luis García Jr.’s throwing error on a potential force at second loaded the bases with no outs. Judge – leading the majors with 51 homers, including seven in the seven games before the Yankees’ arrival in Washington – was at the plate as the tying run. Barnes coaxed Judge into a CJ Abrams-to-Garcia-to-Gallo 6-4-3 double play as LeMahieu scored the first Yankees run. Closer Kyle Finnegan replaced Barnes and retired Stanton with a grounder to end the inning.

In the ninth inning, Finnegan yielded a leadoff double to Yankees trade-deadline acquisition  Jazz Chisholm, who moved to third and scored on Volpe’s RBI groundout. Singles by Wells and Verdugo kept New York’s rally alive, but Finnegan retired LeMahieu on a foul popup for the second out. With Soto and Judge looming on-deck, Torres hit Finnegan’s 27th pitch of the inning to deep right-center, where Crews fittingly caught it to end the game. Nationals win 4-2 on Finnegan’s 33rd save.

When the game was over, how did Corbin view his own performance, now nearly five years after pitching on the biggest stage of all, the 2019 World Series? “Being able to compete against a team that’s most likely going to be in the playoffs, you just go out there and try to be as consistent as possible,” Corbin said, “And you have to be out there and experience situations like this to do that.”11

Crews relished the ovation he received the night before for his major-league debut: “It was an awesome moment, and I’ll definitely remember that for the rest of my life.”12 And, of course, the first hit felt great. “Just get that first one out of the way. Sit back and breathe a little bit.”13

Speaking of playoff atmosphere, the Yankees got to enjoy most of it in 2024. They beat the Kansas City Royals in four games in the AL Division Series and the Cleveland Guardians in five games in the AL Championship Series, before losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers in five games in a history-laden World Series matchup. They had just met for the 12th time in the World Series dating back to 1941, five times more than any other pairing.14

Cole started five games in the postseason. Arguably his best performances came in two games against the Dodgers, when he allowed just one earned run in 12⅔ innings pitched. But Cole could not overcome the fateful top of the fifth inning in World Series Game Five. The Yankee defense collapsed, and the Dodgers scored five unearned runs, allowing Los Angeles to close out the championship in five games.

For the Nationals and their fans, the angst and uncertainty associated with missing out again on postseason baseball was bound to play out in some fashion during the hot stove league that follows each season.15 In addition to Wood and Crews, eight other Nationals players made their major-league debuts in 2024.16 Corbin ended the season as a free agent and both Finnegan and Tanner Rainey were nontendered contracts for 2025. In fact, Rainey was the last member on the roster of the Nationals’ 2019 World Series championship team.17 Free-agent signings, potential trades, and the return of players injured and/or rehabilitating in 2024 were all bound to be part of the winter’s conversation leading to the 2025 season.

Author’s note

It simply cannot be ignored that for the five years after the 2019 season, Corbin struggled mightily on the mound as a starting pitcher. At season’s end, Barry Svrluga implored his Washington Post readers to put aside the 35-year-old Corbin’s worst-in-baseball pitching stats and remember his ability to take the ball every fifth day without missing a start and to serve as a mentor to a young pitching staff.18

Acknowledgments

This essay was fact-checked by Thomas J. Brown Jr. and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources and photo credit

The author accessed Baseball-Reference.com for box scores/play-by-play information (baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS202408270.shtml) and other data, as well as Retrosheet.org (retrosheet.org/boxesetc/2024/B08270WAS2024.htm). The August 27, 2024, Topps NOW baseball card for Dylan Crews (601) is from the author’s collection.

Notes

1 “The Business of Baseball,” Forbes.com, forbes.com/mlb-valuations/list/#tab:overall, accessed December 2024.

2 Skenes debuted with the Pirates in May and by this August night was well on his way to end-of-season National League Rookie of the Year honors. Skenes completed his rookie season with an 11-3 record, a 1.96 ERA, and 170 strikeouts in 133 innings pitched.

3 Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 137. Bronx Bombers – “Nickname for the New York Yankees that first became popular in the 1930s when heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis was known as the Brown Bomber. The term connotes a team that hits many home runs and is still in common use when referring to the Yankees.”

4 Spencer Nusbaum, “‘Felt great’: Crews Gets First MLB Hit and a Win,” Washington Post, August 28, 2024: D5.

5 Steven C. Weiner, “July 23, 2020: Baseball returns to Washington without fans on Opening Day,” SABR Baseball Games Project, accessed December 2024.

6 Steven C. Weiner, “October 30, 2019: Clutch pitching, late hitting lead Washington Nationals to World Series title,” SABR Baseball Games Project, accessed December 2024.

7 Gary Phillips, “Just Nat Gerrit’s Night,” New York Daily News, August 28, 2024: 47.

8 On July 29, 2024, the Nationals traded Thomas to the Cleveland Guardians for Tena and two minor leaguers, Alex Clemmey and Rafael Ramirez Jr.

9 First baseman-designated hitter Andrés Chaparro was acquired on July 30, 2024, from the Arizona Diamondbacks in exchange for relief pitcher Dylan Floro.

10 “Aaron Judge Makes a Leaping Catch, Starts Double Play,” MLB.com, August 26, 2024, mlb.com/gameday/744813/video/nestor-cortes-in-play-out-s-to-andres-chaparro.

11 Nusbaum.

12 Andrew Golden, “Crews Makes Eagerly Awaited Debut Alongside Young Standouts in Loss,” Washington Post, August 27, 2024: D5.

13 Nusbaum.

14 The Yankees and Giants have met seven times in the World Series. Paul Casella, “A Look Back at Every Dodgers-Yankees World Series Matchup,” MLB.com, November 1, 2024, mlb.com/news/dodgers-yankees-world-series-history.

15 Paul Dickson, The Dickson Baseball Dictionary, 3rd Edition (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), 438. Hot stove league – “The gab, gossip, and debate that take place during the winter months when baseball is not being played. These discussions replaying the past season and anticipating the next occurred at such places as saloons, poolrooms, general stores, barbershops, and drugstores where there was a coal- or wood-burning, potbellied stove.”

16 James Wood, Dylan Crews, Trey Lipscomb, Nasim Nuňez, Mitchell Parker, DJ Herz, Andrés Chaparro, Orlando Ribalta,  Zach Brzykcy, and Darren Baker.

17 Jessica Camerato, “All-Star Reliever Finnegan a Free Agent after Being Non-Tendered by Nats,” MLB.com, November 22, 2024, mlb.com/news/kyle-finnegan-non-tendered-by-nationals.

18 Barry Svrluga, “From the World Series to the Dog Days, Corbin Would Always Take the Ball,” Washington Post, September 26, 2024: D1. “Of the 173 pitchers who have thrown at least 300 innings over the past five seasons, no one has a higher ERA than Corbin’s 5.61. No one has given up more than Corbin’s 899 hits or Corbin’s 491 runs or Corbin’s 131 homers. No one has allowed opponents a higher batting average than Corbin’s .296 or lost more decisions than Corbin’s 70.”