Washington still had reasons to like its hand walking in — a home crowd, a bullpen that had just thrown a scoreless weekend, and a division-record home mark that's kept the Nats in the wild-card conversation despite long odds. None of that mattered once the game got away from them.
The Nationals actually grabbed an early lead and hung around into the middle innings before Chicago's offense took over for good. By the time the final line was in the books, the Cubs had piled up 13 hits and cracked double digits in runs for the second straight night against this Washington pitching staff.
This is exactly the kind of game the Cubs needed with Milwaukee still out front in the NL Central — Chicago has the more favorable stretch of schedule coming up, and taking care of business against a rebuilding Nationals club is table stakes if they're going to keep the pressure on. Washington, meanwhile, is left to figure out what a rocky rookie debut means for a rotation that's already been picking up scraps.
Kent will get more chances — that's the whole point of the call-up — but this first look came against about as tough a lineup as the Nationals could have scheduled it for, and it showed.