Washington Erupts for Five in the Eighth, Stuns Los Angeles 6-5
Washington trailed 4-2 heading into the bottom of the eighth inning and scored five unanswered runs to walk away with a 6-5 win over Los Angeles on September 13. The entire comeback unfolded in a single chaotic frame that swung the win probability from 28% to 60% on one swing of Daylen Lile's bat.
Los Angeles looked in control early and it wasn't subtle. Moises Ballesteros launched a 407-foot homer to center in the fourth to put the Angels up 1-0, and Zach Neto answered with an even more emphatic 440-foot shot to center in the fifth to make it 2-0. Washington clawed back to tie it 2-2 in the sixth — Yohandy Morales singled home a run, then scored himself on a fielder's choice grounder — but Los Angeles reclaimed the lead in the eighth when Neto scored on a wild pitch and Ballesteros added a sacrifice fly to push it to 4-2. At that point, this looked like an Angels game to lose.
Then the eighth inning turned into something else entirely. Lile tripled to right, scoring Morales to cut it to 4-3 — that single play swung Washington's win probability from 28% to 60%, a 33-point lurch in one at-bat. Jorbit Vivas followed with a single to left, scoring Lile to tie it at four. Jacob Young then doubled to left, plating Vivas for a 5-4 Washington lead. Before the inning was over, another run crossed on a single to left, and suddenly Washington led 6-4. Five runs, one inning, game flipped.
The pitching story is worth noting. Jake Irvin was messy in five innings — 4 walks, 3 earned runs — but Washington's bullpen did the heavy lifting. Riley Cornelio threw 2.0 innings of one-hit, scoreless ball with 4 strikeouts, and Erik Tolman worked a scoreless ninth despite issuing a walk and two strikeouts. Grayson Rodriguez gave Los Angeles 5.1 innings and allowed 2 earned runs on 7 hits, which looks like a reasonable outing that the bullpen couldn't protect. Los Angeles did pull within one in the ninth — a run scored on a groundout to make it 6-5 — but that was as close as they'd get. The story of the night was Washington's ability to absorb a two-run deficit in the eighth and turn it into a two-run lead without ever letting Los Angeles breathe again.