Washington Nationals’ Patrick Corbin still searching for answers, consistency...

Winless in his first nine starts (0-7) with a 6.60 ERA, a 4.72 FIP, 20 walks, 39 Ks, and a rough .295/.372/.465 line against in 43 ²⁄₃ innings pitched, Patrick Corbin finally claimed a win in Washington’s 7-3 win over the Colorado Rockies last Thursday evening in Nationals Park, in start No. 10.

He did give up seven hits, two walks, and three earned runs in the start against the Rockies, but he got through 6 ¹⁄₃ on just 80 pitches, and he got that first curly-W.

He wasn’t exactly celebrating “finally” getting his first win of the season.

“It’s always good to get a win,” Corbin said, “it stinks it’s this late. I feel like I’ve been throwing pretty well, but that’s baseball.

“It sometimes doesn’t matter how you pitch, if their guy’s out there throwing really well, but obviously it’s good, I’m glad it’s behind us.”

Photo by Mike Stobe/Getty Images

He also said as he’s struggled again this season, after tough runs in 2020 and 2021, he no longer looks at the sort of numbers mentioned above.

“I haven’t looked once this year,” Corbin said. “So I’ve been feeling really good. Obviously, I know what my record is, but that’s probably about it, and I can just control what I’m able to do in-between, and like I said, I’ve been feeling good and just glad I got a win tonight.”

He probably won’t want to look at the numbers from his start in Citi Field this week either.

It did not go well for the 32-year-old southpaw, who gave up a 2-run home run two batters in and was charged for seven runs on 12 hits in the end, with 11 of 12 hits (all but the home run) singles, as the Mets’ hitters frustrated the veteran and knocked him out in the fifth (at 106 pitches).

Patrick Corbin’s Line: 4.1 IP, 12 H, 7 R, 7 ER, 2 BB, 6 Ks, 1 HR, 106 P, 71 S, 3/1 GO/FO.

Corbin did generate 13 swinging strikes, eight of them with his slider (which he threw 39% of the time), and he picked up 17 called strikes (7 with his 4-seamer, 6 with his sinker, and 2 each on his slider and changeup), but Mets’ hitters fouled off 22 of 106 pitches (21%) to run up his pitch count and chase him relatively early.

“He threw the ball down,” manager Davey Martinez told reporters after what ended up a 10-0 loss. “He just got beat up by a bunch of singles. He really did. So, a couple misses with two strikes, a couple hits where I thought — a little better pitch, maybe, but he’s — look, he’s throwing the ball, he’s doing everything we’re asking him to do, right? He’s throwing strikes, he’s pounding the strike zone, after the home run he settled down. He was ahead of a bunch of hitters. Like I said, a couple of two-strike hits, a couple broken bat hits, next thing you know he’s given up [12] hits, 4-5 runs, but he battled. He gave us as much as he could. Threw [106] pitches.

“After yesterday we needed him to go out there and he did that. For me, I think we got to do a better job of just understanding what we need to do to get these hitters out, I really do, so it’s something that we’ll talk about tomorrow.”

“I was hoping to get through that fifth there, and possibly go back out,” in the sixth, Corbin said, as quoted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman.

“But even that inning there [in the fifth], I thought I made some quality pitches.”

“They’re a really good team over there, a lot of professional hitters,” Corbin added.

“It’s tough. You try to make the best pitches you can. Tonight was just one of those strange days where I felt good, I thought my stuff was pretty good and a bunch of those hits there. I’ll probably look at it tomorrow, see if there’s some things I could’ve done differently. But it’s frustrating, especially when you feel pretty good.”

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“I felt like he was around the zone, had a lot of two-strike counts, couldn’t finish, whether it was a ball that found its way through the infield, they didn’t hit many balls hard,” Martinez reiterated.

“There were not many balls hit very hard.

“I talked to him for a little minute, and I said, ‘Hey, I thought you threw the ball well. Now you got to finish at-bats, that’s the key.”

“I’m seeing a guy that’s not locating his fastball,” GM Mike Rizzo said when asked to assess Corbin’s outing on this past Wednesday’s visit with 106.7 the FAN in D.C.’s Sports Junkies.

“He gave up [12 hits], I believe [11] were singles, and I think eight or nine of them were to the opposite field. I think we need to pitch in — as a group, I think we need to pitch in more, we need to be more aggressive with our fastball inside ... to open up the outer half of the plate to get guys out, and I see the New York Mets last night just diving over the plate and just taking pitches to the opposite field, and out of all their hits, they had a bunch of hits, I think 17 hits or something like that, and three extras-base hits, so it’s death by a million tiny cuts, you know what I mean? But you tip your hat to those guys, because they have a good hitting plan. We have to adjust our pitching plan and pound these guys inside and be aggressive in the strike zone. Throw strikes but throw quality strikes inside, and we have to command both sides of the plate, but especially the inside portion of the plate.”