Austin Voth was in attack mode early against the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday afternoon in the nation’s capital, retiring the first seven batters he faced, before a ground ball to third bounced off Josh Harrison’s foot as the tried to backhand it.
A two-out single by Andrew McCutchen and walk to Bryce Harper loaded the bases in front of Alec Bohm, who grounded into a force at second to end the threat.
It was 5-0 in the Nationals’ favor when Voth came out for the fourth, and gave up a solo shot to left by Jean Segura with two down.
A 14-pitch, 1-2-3 fifth, in which he picked up two Ks, left him at 78 pitches overall, with six Ks in five innings of work, and he picked up his seventh K in a 14-pitch, 1-2-3 sixth inning which left him at 91 pitches on the day.
Voth, 28, didn’t give his manager or pitching coach an opportunity to take him out at that point.
Once the top of the sixth was over, he walked to the dugout and headed right down the tunnel to the clubhouse.
“I knew my pitch count might have been up there,” Voth explained after finishing a seven- inning complete game against the Phillies in a 5-1 win.
Rock the Voth.#NATITUDE pic.twitter.com/wJ3SecBXIR
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) September 22, 2020
“I was flying by people because I knew that I didn’t want anybody to talk to me. I didn’t want [manager] Davey [Martinez] to come up to me, I didn’t want [pitching coach] Paul [Menhart] to say anything to me.
“I just wanted to go in the tunnel and focus on that next inning and hopefully they didn’t come down and talk to me.”
Did anyone come down the tunnel to talk to him?
“No,” Voth said with a sly smile. He came back out for the seventh and finished off the game with a scoreless 14-pitch frame, working around a leadoff single.
Austin Voth’s Line: 7.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 7 Ks, 1 HR, 105 P, 68 S, 5/3 GO/FO.
Voth generated nine swinging strikes and recorded 19 called strikes, 15 of them with his fastball in the 105-pitch effort.
“I’ve never been able to do that,” the 2013 5th Round pick said of throwing a complete game of shorts after the win.
“I feel like I’ve been chasing that for a while. More importantly just going deep in the game today.
“I felt like with the doubleheader and how our bullpen is, gave them a little bit of a rest. But I’m ecstatic right now.”
Voth took the mound on Tuesday (0-5) in nine starts, with a 7.17 ERA, 17 walks, 33 Ks, and a .290/.375/.594 line against in 37 2⁄3 IP, but he was coming off a solid outing against Tampa Bay, and he said some mechanical tweaks he made before that start paid off and he carried that into today’s appearance.
“It’s just getting back to being me,” he explained, after telling reporter last time out that he was trying to keep his back foot on the rubber longer, “... sticking my foot — my back foot that’s on the rubber, leaving that as long as possible. It’s been coming off the rubber early and so when that happens I lose power I lose momentum, and I’m not able to drive off the back side of the rubber.”
He continued to do that against the Phillies and once again had success.
“Using my legs, I have more life on my fastball. I feel like I can spin the ball a little bit better because of that,” Voth said.
“I’m not pulling off as much. And with my mechanics, I’ve been working on the same thing.
“Just trying to keep things simple, focusing on foot, back side of the rubber, and making sure it doesn’t come off, and that’s been the key so far.”
Austin Voth, 93mph Paint.
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) September 22, 2020
Stu "Hitman" Scheurwater with a legit KO Punchout. pic.twitter.com/uLD16V4siQ
Voth also said he’s adopted a new mentality on the mound.
“I like to look at it as I’ve just got nothing to lose,” the right-hander said. “If you look at it as you have nothing to lose, and you go out there and compete the best you can every single time, you can go home and sleep at night and you can go home knowing that you gave it your all. So that’s kind of my mentality.”
His manager, who gave him votes of confidence even while he struggled through previous outings was thrilled to see Voth turn it around.
“He was awesome,” Martinez said. “Really, really awesome. I mean, here’s another guy, who when things were down, there was a whole lot of conversations with him, 1-on-1 conversations with him. At one point he thought we were going to put him in the bullpen and I told him, ‘I’m not going to do that to you. You’re our fifth starter. I appointed you the fifth starter, so you’re going to go out there and you’re going to start and you’re going to pitch.’
“His last two outings have been what I knew that he could do. We saw that in him, so he worked hard to get to where he’s at now, so kudos to him as well for just going out there and staying positive and having confidence. And for me that’s a big thing, the confidence with some of these guys. You build that confidence and then all of a sudden they take off, and he looked like that guy that we had last year where he could pump strikes, he could throw anything over for strikes, and he’s going to get outs and he did that today.”