None of that separation was news to the board, which had Washington laying a healthy price to win outright and the total sitting at 8.5. By the ninth pitch of the fifth inning, the number looked like it wasn't nearly wide enough.
The game was scoreless into the fourth before it broke open. Washington strung together a 5-run fifth, tacked on 3 more in the sixth, then piled on 2 in the seventh and 3 in the eighth — 13 runs on 13 hits with zero errors, while Colorado's defense cracked for 2 miscues behind Feltner. It was the kind of systematic disassembly that happens when a rested, red-hot arm meets a lineup that's lost 5 straight and hasn't found a rhythm against anybody.
For Colorado, this is what a lost season looks like in real time — a rotation losing pieces by the day, a lineup that can't buy a run against a good arm, and a farm system getting audition minutes because the standings don't matter anymore. For Washington, snapping a 4-game skid this way doesn't erase James Wood's absence or the fact that three rotation arms are still rehabbing in the minors, but Cavalli buying the bullpen a night off matters more than usual for a staff running on fumes.
However this stretch shakes out for either club down the standings, Monday belonged entirely to Washington and to Cavalli's summer — and Colorado leaves Nationals Park looking for literally anything to stop the bleeding.