The Nationals' clubhouse was playing music this morning as it normally does before a game. Traditionally, it’s the pick of that day’s starting pitcher. For Trevor Williams, it was a country/pop-rock combination.

Despite an 11-game losing streak – one shy of the Nationals' club record (2005-present) – the vibes this morning felt no different than it normally does. There wasn’t extra tension. No one seemed to be walking on pins and needles. It was the same laid-back, yet focused, atmosphere this young team typically has.

The question was: Would there be music playing in the clubhouse after the game, signifying a celebration following a victory? It would be the first such occurrence for this team in almost two weeks.

The answer: Yes, thanks to a 4-3 walk-off win in 11 innings against the Rockies to snap the losing streak and get the Nats back in the win column.

“We kept saying the whole game, I said, 'Somehow, someway we'll win this game. We just gotta have the right moment,'” manager Davey Martinez said after the win. “And what a moment for the kid to come up there and lift us like that and really get us out of this funk.”

What more can be said at this point? After now having lost the season series to the lowly Rockies, the Nationals must win this afternoon to avoid a four-game sweep in their home ballpark at the hands of the major leagues’ worst team. A victory would also keep them from a winless homestand and finally end this 11-game losing streak before it ties a club record.

Trevor Williams will look to continue the solid effort the starting rotation has put forth. He is 3-8 with a 5.71 ERA and 1.428 WHIP through 14 starts. But the right-hander has been charged with two earned runs or less in three of his last four outings, posting a more respectable 4.05 ERA over that stretch.

The Nats' offense will, yet again, try to break out of this prolonged funk against an opposing starter with a high ERA. Chase Dollander is 2-7 with a 6.57 ERA and 1.539 WHIP over his first 11 major league starts. The rookie right-hander, who was the No. 9 overall pick out of the University of Tennessee in 2023, has seen some better results as of late, being charged with three earned runs or less in four of his last five starts. But he hasn’t pitched deep into games, completing just 22 ⅔ innings and getting past the fifth only twice over that stretch.

The Nationals got to Dollander to the tune of nine runs (six earned) on nine hits and four home runs back in April at Coors Field. Maybe this rookie is just who they need to see again to turn things around.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. COLORADO ROCKIES
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:05 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 The Fan, DC 87.7 (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Mostly sunny, 89 degrees, wind 13 mph out to center field

The Nationals’ 11th straight loss looked quite a bit like their previous 10. They did very little at the plate against the opposing starter. They got a solid outing from their own starter, who made one costly mistake. And they left themselves needing a last-ditch rally, which once again didn't come.

This 3-1 loss to the Rockies could’ve happened last weekend against the Marlins, or last week against the Mets, or the previous weekend against the Rangers. They’re all starting to run together at this point, the commonalities all too evident.

The only truly unique aspects about tonight’s loss? It included a 1-hour, 45-minute rain delay. And it included some legitimate bad luck for the Nats, who hit 11 balls with an exit velocity of at least 98 mph but saw only four of them land for hits because a terrible Colorado defensive unit played what had to be its best game of the year.

"We hit the ball hard. We just had nothing to show for it for a while," manager Davey Martinez said. "They were diving all over the field."

Bad luck or not, results are results. And this was the 11th consecutive bad result for the Nationals, who have fallen from a respectable 30-33 less than two weeks ago to a miserable 30-44 now. They’ll give it another shot Thursday afternoon in the series finale, hoping not to match the club’s all-time worst losing streak of 12 set in August 2008.

Mike Rizzo voiced his support for Davey Martinez today, saying the manager’s track record of success on the field and handling of the clubhouse has earned him the right to continue leading a Nationals team mired in its worst losing streak in 17 years.

Making his weekly radio appearance on 106.7 The Fan’s “The Sports Junkies,” Rizzo was asked if the Nats’ situation differed from three other major league clubs that fired their managers earlier this season: the Pirates, Rockies and Orioles.

“Here’s what I’ll say about that: Pittsburgh hasn’t won a World Series since ‘We are Family.’ Colorado has never won a World Series. And Baltimore, Davey Johnson (actually, Joe Altobelli) was the last guy who won the World Series with Baltimore. This guy has proven through trials and tribulations that he can handle a roster. He can handle a veteran-laden team. And he’s developing at the big league level. My track record is: I have fired managers in midseason. I fired managers after the season. I’ve fired coaches midseason. I’ve fired coaches after the season. We’re all being evaluated. We’ve all got to look ourselves in the mirror.

“But we are at a point right now where we’re moving forward with our development of these young kids. I think Davey still has the pulse of the clubhouse. He’s a great clubhouse presence, and he’s a calming presence. And I think that once we get through this thing and win a couple of games – which we will – that we can right the ship and continue progressing towards winning the championship, whenever that is. And I think that’s where my feelings are right now.”

Martinez, who led the Nationals from a 19-31 start to a World Series title in 2019 but has not enjoyed a winning season since, with the franchise embarking on a roster teardown and rebuilding effort in July 2021, has come under increased scrutiny over the last several days as his team extended its losing streak to its largest number since the 2008 club lost 12 in a row. He also faced criticism for his response to a question following Saturday’s loss to the Marlins about whether players or coaches were to blame for the team’s struggling offense.

The sun came up today. Well, not really because we continue to experience disgusting weather here in the D.C. region, with clouds, rain and humidity that makes it feel like South Florida instead of the Mid-Atlantic. But regardless, the Nationals are playing another game tonight, another opportunity to try to end their losing streak, which has now reached 10 games.

As always, it boils down to getting the game off to a positive start. They need to score some runs off Germán Márquez, who like Antonio Senzatela last night enters with a bloated ERA but unlike Senzatela did not face the Nats earlier this season. So we’ll see how they fare against the Rockies right-hander.

And it boils down to Mitchell Parker getting through a clean top of the first and then giving his team a chance. Parker did not do that last time out against the Marlins, giving up a run in the first, another in the second and then four in third. He simply can’t dig his teammates into a hole tonight, not the way things are going around here.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. COLORADO ROCKIES
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Thunderstorms, 83 degrees, wind 8 mph out to center field

ROCKIES
DH Tyler Freeman
2B Kyle Farmer
LF Jordan Beck
1B Michael Toglia
CF Brenton Doyle
3B Orlando Arcia
RF Sam Hilliard
SS Ryan Ritter
C Braxton Fulford

It all happened so fast from Cole Henry’s perspective. He entered a 3-1 game in the top of the seventh Tuesday night at Nationals Park. Four batters later, he departed a 7-1 game with many in the crowd of 17,232 booing.

The rookie reliever knew what was going on: “I’ve had a couple times this year where I just get too quick on my back side and start rushing,” he explained. But he couldn’t fix the problem in the moment, and so he was left to endure through a nightmare scenario that saw four straight Rockies batters reach base, the last two belting home runs to blow the game wide open.

A starter throughout his college and minor league career, Henry is learning on the fly how to deal with the unique responsibilities of life as a major league reliever. After a postgame conversation with Nationals pitching strategist Sean Doolittle, he realized he’s going to have to get better at making quicker adjustments in this role.

“As a starter, you have a couple innings to figure something out. As a reliever, you don’t have time,” he said. “You’ve got to figure it out within a batter. For me, it’s just trying to get back to the basics, try to stay within myself, not try to do too much. I just started pressing a little bit, trying to make stuff too perfect, trying to make my stuff nastier than what it needs to be.”

Henry’s rookie season has been an overwhelming success so far. He’s been scored upon in only four of his 24 outings. His fastball-curveball combo has been devastating for big league hitters when he commands both pitches. He entered Tuesday night with a 2.22 ERA and 10 strikeouts per nine innings.

The boos came in waves during the top of the seventh from a crowd of 17,232 tonight at Nationals Park, each time a Rockies player circled the bases after hitting a home run. It happened four times during that jaw-dropping inning alone, plus again in the eighth, impossible for Davey Martinez, Mike Rizzo and their players not to notice.

It can always get worse, they say. It’s hard to imagine that right now around here.

The Nationals lost to the Rockies tonight 10-6, a final score that looks much closer than it was because of a four-run rally in the bottom of the ninth that showed some spunk but still fell well short. On its own, that would constitute a really bad night, given the quality of opponent (or lack thereof). Under the current circumstances, it felt like a knife through the heart of a team that has collapsed this month.

For only the second time in club history, the Nats have lost 10 consecutive games. The last five have come at the hands of two of the worst teams in baseball: the Marlins and Rockies. When the streak began, the Nationals were not in that conversation, owners of a respectable 30-33 record and hoping to feast on supposedly inferior competition and surpass the coveted .500 mark.

Instead, that record is now 30-43. The .500 mark is a distant dream at this point. The question now is what, if anything, is forthcoming from Martinez, from Rizzo or from ownership.

Riley Adams has received more playing time in recent weeks than at any point in the last year-plus, certainly more than he ever does when Keibert Ruiz is healthy. Each of the Nationals’ catchers has started six games so far in June, a stark contrast from the previous stretch that saw Ruiz behind the plate in 14 of 16 games.

The idea was to get Adams into some kind of rhythm at the plate. The results, though, have been anything but.

Adams currently finds himself in an 0-for-30 slump, reaching base only once (via his only walk of the season), striking out 13 times. His batting average is down to .091 (5-for-55), his OPS down to .325, lowest among all National League players with at least 50 plate appearances.

Manager Davey Martinez said the 28-year-old hasn’t been able to keep his bat in the hitting zone long enough, his hips opening too soon as the bat lags behind. And as the 0-fers have continued, the pressure has only mounted to try to snap out of it, compounding the problem.

“He’s trying too hard to do well. So is everybody else,” Martinez said, referencing the team’s current offensive struggles during a nine-game losing streak. “We’ve got to get him to slow his feet down a little bit. He’s got a tremendous amount of power. Just get him to stay on the ball and not worry about doing much.”

There has been only one 10-game losing streak in Nationals history. It came all the way back in August 2008, the first year of operation at Nationals Park, when a team that went into the season believing it was good enough to win proceeded to lose 102 games. The streak would reach 12 games, but loss No. 10 came at home against the Rockies.

Tonight, the Nats will attempt to avoid reaching that ignominious 10-game mark again, and to do that they’ll have to beat the Rockies. This should be a favorable matchup for the home team, but as we saw Monday night and over the weekend when the Marlins were in town, there’s no such thing as a favorable matchup right now.

Colorado’s starting pitcher tonight is Antonio Senzatela. He is 1-10 with a 7.23 ERA this season. His lone victory came against the Nationals, who managed just one run in six innings against him on April 20 in the nightcap of a doubleheader at Coors Field. They scored that run in the top of the first, with James Wood drawing a leadoff walk, moving to second on Keibert Ruiz’s grounder and scoring on Nathaniel Lowe’s RBI single.

Michael Soroka did not pitch in that series, because he was on the injured list at the time. The right-hander is fully healthy now, but still seeking some consistency on the mound. Soroka sports a very solid 1.119 WHIP, with a strong 4-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio. So why does he also have a 5.14 ERA? Because he’s been prone to one or two critical mistakes per outing, which is most notably in the eight home runs he’s allowed over only 42 innings. He’s got to avoid those killer mistakes tonight if he wants to help pitch the Nationals to a desperately needed win.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. COLORADO ROCKIES
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 6:45 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Thunderstorms, 78 degrees, wind 8 mph out to left field

As he contemplated Monday night’s game roughly 30 minutes after it ended, Nationals manager Davey Martinez kept pointing out the positive developments he saw from a number of his players, especially young players.

Brady House looked comfortable in his major league debut. Daylen Lile looked great in his second big league stint, launching his first career homer. CJ Abrams made one of the best defensive plays of his career. James Wood had another big night, doubling, homering and drawing a walk. Jake Irvin overcame another first-inning mistake to deliver a quality start. Brad Lord was lights out in two innings of relief.

“We played really well,” Martinez said to open his postgame press conference.

The end result, of course, was a loss. Maybe the biggest gut-punch loss of the season after Kyle Finnegan gave up two home runs in the top of the ninth to turn a 4-3 lead over the Rockies into a 6-4 loss to far and away the worst team in baseball.

That’s nine straight losses, by the way, matching the second-longest streak in club history. Every other one of this length, including the club-record 12-game losing streak from August 2008, has come from a team that ultimately lost 100-plus games.

The Nationals promoted Brady House from Triple-A Rochester today not because they believed their 2021 first-round pick was going to singlehandedly snap their eight-game losing streak, but because they believed his presence would at least help the cause.

There was nothing, of course, House could do about what transpired during a nightmare top of the ninth with Kyle Finnegan on the mound, one that sent the home team to the worst yet of its nine consecutive losses.

Serving up a pair of home runs to Hunter Goodman and Mickey Moniak, Finnegan turned a one-run lead into a 6-4 loss to the worst-in-the-majors Rockies, leaving a season-low crowd of 11,370 stunned and dismayed at the new depths the Nats have now reached.

"When you get a chance to put your closer in for the ninth, that's what you want," manager Davey Martinez said. "Today, we just came out on the wrong side of the field. I'm excited about the way the kids played. ... Those guys are going to be all right. They'll help us win games. This was a tough one."

Finnegan took the mound with a 4-3 lead in hand, made possible by homers from Daylen Lile and James Wood, a quality start from Jake Irvin and two perfect innings of setup by Brad Lord. He needed merely to record three outs against a weak Colorado lineup. That was easier said than done. Goodman, who had already homered off Irvin way back in the top of the first, mashed a 97 mph fastball to left-center for the game-tying homer.

Brady House had just left Innovative Field, taking his girlfriend to the Rochester airport and then making plans to get dinner and pack his bags for an expected week playing in Lehigh Valley when his phone rang. He was told he needed to turn around and come back to the ballpark for a meeting, and suddenly the 22-year-old had a hunch what this was all about.

“I had an idea, but obviously you don’t want to get yourself too excited in case it doesn’t happen,” he said. “I was just trying to get ready for whatever that meeting was.”

House’s hunch was right. Red Wings manager Matt LeCroy told the young third baseman he was getting called up by the Nationals and would be making his major league debut tonight. His girlfriend wouldn’t be boarding that flight. The two of them would be driving together to D.C., with the rest of his family making last-minute plans to fly here and witness a moment they’ve long anticipated.

“I was, honestly, getting ready to go get some dinner and do laundry and all that stuff,” he said. “And then that was the best surprise.”

House will bat sixth and start at third base tonight against Rockies left-hander Carson Palmquist. Manager Davey Martinez says he’ll be out there every day, perhaps bumped down a slot when facing a righty but here to play alongside the organization’s other top prospects who arrived in the majors ahead of the 2021 first-round pick.

It’s a big day for the Nationals, who will see their latest top prospect make his major league debut. Sadly, the arrival of Brady House comes with the team as a whole reeling, having just been swept over the weekend by the Marlins, their worst losing streak in two years now up to eight games. House should not be considered the savior. No prospect should, but he in particular isn’t supposed to be the kind of player who changes the entire fortunes of a lineup.

That said, House should provide a much-needed offensive boost at a position of great need. Nats third basemen have combined for only two homers this season (both by Amed Rosario). House hit 13 of them in 65 games at Triple-A Rochester. Even if the 22-year-old is half as good as that, it’ll still be an improvement for the team at large.

House should have a favorable matchup tonight in his debut. The Rockies were supposed to start veteran Kyle Freeland, but he was placed on the injured list, so it’ll be rookie left-hander Carson Palmquist making his sixth career start. Palmquist, 24, is 0-4 with a 7.77 ERA and 1.818 WHIP in the previous five starts. The Nationals absolutely need to do damage tonight against him, and right from the get-go.

Jake Irvin, meanwhile, needs to be at his best after three straight less-than-stellar starts in which he allowed 13 runs and 23 hits over 15 innings to the Diamondbacks, Cubs and Mets. Irvin was excellent when he pitched at Coors Field back in April, allowing two runs on three hits and striking out nine over 6 1/3 innings.

By the way, here’s the full list of transactions before today’s game: House and outfielder Daylen Lile were promoted from Triple-A, with infielder José Tena and outfielder Robert Hassell III optioned to Rochester. And in order to clear a 40-man roster spot for House, the Nationals designated Juan Yepez for assignment, the first baseman/DH having produced only a .575 OPS at Triple-A this season.

The Washington Nationals announced the following roster moves on Monday. Nationals President of Baseball Operations and General Manager Mike Rizzo made the announcements.

• Selected the contract of third baseman Brady House from Triple-A Rochester
• Recalled outfielder Daylen Lile from Triple-A Rochester
• Optioned outfielder Robert Hassell III and infielder José Tena to Triple-A Rochester
• Designated infielder Juan Yepez for assignment

House, 22, leads Washington’s Minor League system in nearly every offensive category, including home runs (13), RBI (41), slugging percentage (.519), OPS (.872), hits (79), extra-base hits (29) and runs scored (42) in 65 games with Triple-A Rochester this season. He has hit .304 with a .353 on-base percentage and has also added 15 doubles, one triple and 20 walks to his season totals. Defensively, he boasts the “Best Infield Arm” in the organization, according to Baseball America.

House joins the Nationals after having hit safely in 15 straight games for the Red Wings, the second-longest active streak in all of Minor League Baseball. He hit .375 (24-for-64) with four doubles, four homers, 13 RBI, five walks and 10 runs scored. He posted a .420 on-base percentage and a .625 slugging percentage during the streak.

The No. 3 prospect in Washington’s system and one of the top 100 prospects in all of baseball according to MLB Pipeline (No. 91) and Baseball America (No. 98), House is in his fifth professional season after being selected 11^th overall in the 2021 First-Year Player Draft out of Winder-Barrow High School in Winder, Georgia. He has been one of the best overall hitters in Washington’s system throughout his career, posting a .280/.338/.453 slash line with 68 doubles, five triples, 51 RBI, 96 walks, 16 stolen bases and 200 runs scored in 343 professional games.

From the moment his flight arrived at Reagan National Airport this weekend, Wilson Ramos felt a tug at his heart. It only grew Sunday morning when he pulled up to Nationals Park, the place he used to call home, the place he now was revisiting one final time to officially announce his retirement from baseball.

“It’s very, very emotional to be here, around the stadium, into the stadium,” he said. “It's very emotional.”

As the current version of the Nationals was limping to its eighth straight loss, with the club making plans to promote top hitting prospect Brady House in hopes of re-energizing a languishing lineup, the sight of Ramos (not to mention fellow former teammates Adam LaRoche and Daniel Murphy) in the house brought back some much needed fond memories of a more successful period of franchise history.

Who’s the best catcher in Nats history? Ramos has to be the consensus choice. He’s the club’s all-time leader in games (578), homers (83), RBIs (320) and OPS (.743) as a catcher. He won a Silver Slugger Award, made an All-Star team, finished fourth in National League Rookie of the Year voting, was behind the plate for the only three no-hitters in team history, not to mention Max Scherzer’s 20-strikeout game.

For parts of seven seasons (2010-16), he was a steady presence in the lineup and in the catcher’s box for the franchise as it grew from a consistent loser to a consistent winner.

Desperate for a jolt following a weekend sweep at the hands of the Marlins that extended their worst losing streak in two years to eight games, the Nationals decided to call up the last remaining top offensive prospect they’ve got waiting in the wings in the upper levels of their farm system.

Brady House is being promoted from Triple-A Rochester and is expected to make his major league debut at third base Monday night when the Nats open a four-game series against the Rockies, a source familiar with the decision confirmed. The same source confirmed the team is also recalling outfielder Daylen Lile, who made his big league debut last month but was sent down after going 6-for-31 in 11 games.

The club has not yet formally announced the two promotions – someone will have to be removed from the 40-man roster to clear a space for House, with several players available for transfer to the 60-day injured list – but two hours after the conclusion of today’s loss the team did announce infielder José Tena and outfielder Robert Hassell III had been optioned to Triple-A.

House’s arrival alone probably isn’t going to be enough to resurrect a dormant Nationals lineup that has scored only 31 runs in 13 games this month, but the promotion of the organization’s 2021 first-round pick is nevertheless a significant development, one that has been anticipated for some time.

House, who recently turned 22, put up impressive numbers in 65 games with Rochester over the season’s first 2 1/2 months. After going 2-for-4 with a double and two RBIs this afternoon, he raised his batting average to .304, his on-base percentage to .353 and his slugging percentage to .519. With 15 doubles, 13 homers and 41 RBIs, the right-handed hitter gives the team a much-needed bat with power potential. (Nationals third basemen have collectively hit only two homers this season, second-fewest in the majors.)

As the innings passed by and scoring opportunity after scoring opportunity passed by without the Nationals converting, the reality began to sink in. This team was about to be swept by the Marlins and extend its interminable losing streak to eight games.

There was nothing novel about today’s 3-1 loss before an unenthused crowd of 28,983 on South Capitol Street. MacKenzie Gore pitched well enough to win but did not. A fast-fading lineup that hasn’t hit in two weeks once again did not hit. There wasn’t even the token ninth-inning rally that comes up just short to lament.

No, nothing is going right for the Nationals these days. And on the heels of this lifeless weekend sweep at the hands of one of the worst teams in the majors, the only remaining question is: What happens now?

Is there a dramatic change coming, whether to the roster or the coaching staff? If not, how is this current, underperforming group going to flip the switch and start playing again like it did only a couple weeks ago when it was making a run at the .500 mark?

"We're looking at different options, for sure," manager Davey Martinez said. "But we've won before with these guys. They see what it's like to win games, a few in a row. I know they don't come to the ballpark thinking they're going to lose. They thought again we had a chance to win today. We've got to keep battling. We've got 26 guys in that clubhouse that are going to give me everything they've got every day. We'll focus on those 26 guys right now."

In search of a desperately needed offensive spark, Davey Martinez is trying something today he’s never tried before: Batting CJ Abrams third in his lineup.

For the first time in his career, Abrams will bat third today as the Nationals try to avoid getting swept by the Marlins and snap a seven-game losing streak. The team’s usual leadoff hitter, one of the few currently producing, will bat behind Alex Call and James Wood in hopes of driving in more runs than he can from the No. 1 spot in the lineup.

“Just trying to get something going,” Martinez said. “CJ’s hitting the ball well. Wood is hitting the ball well. Trying to put Alex up there and get something going, and try to score some runs early. We’re scoring late. I want to see if we can try to score some runs early. And having (Wood and Abrams) maybe with guys on base will definitely create that.”

It’s the first time Abrams has ever batted third in 437 career big league games. He also hasn’t started a game in the fourth or fifth spot in the order. In spite of the team’s recent woes, the 24-year-old shortstop has been producing, batting .409 (9-for-22) with two doubles and a homer over his last five games.

“I talked with him first, and he was excited about it,” Martinez said. “He said he’ll maybe get a chance to drive in some runs. It’s all based on conversations. I talked to Alex about maybe bumping him up. He’s done it before; he does like hitting leadoff. I told him your job is just to get on base for these guys and see if we can create a little length for our lineup.”

The Nationals are not in a good place right now, suffice it to say. They’ve lost seven in a row, including two straight to the Marlins. They’re a season-low 10 games under .500. And after Saturday’s game, manager Davey Martinez got testy when asked about his coaching staff, offering an impassioned defense of those guys that may or may not have gone over well within the clubhouse.

A win today wouldn’t solve everything, but it would sure help. The Nats have lost four of five to Miami this season, and the notion of getting swept in this series was almost unfathomable a couple days ago.

MacKenzie Gore will need to be on point, which he has been more often than not so far this year. Martinez will lean on his ace and let him go deep in this game before ideally handing it over to a couple of back-end relievers.

But really the story today is the Nationals lineup. Can it not only produce, but can it produce early and often and not leave itself scrambling to rally in the late innings? They’re facing a flamethrower in Eury Perez, who is making only his second start of the season, only his second big league start since 2023, having just recovered fully from his April 2024 Tommy John surgery. Who knows what exactly to expect against the right-hander, but the Nats had better hope they do some damage against him.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS vs. MIAMI MARLINS
Where: Nationals Park
Gametime: 1:35 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Chance of rain late, 69 degrees, wind 7 mph in from right field

Perhaps the most telling aspect of today’s ballgame at Nationals Park was that, for most of the afternoon, the home team had far more success at the plate when it chose not to swing the bat than when it did.

Yes, there was a last-ditch attempt to rally in the bottom of the ninth, when they finally started making some real contact and nearly pulled off a stunning comeback. And yet at the end of the day, despite scoring two runs and loading the bases with one out against Anthony Bender, the fifth and only ineffective Marlins reliever of the days, the Nationals could not push across the tying run and wound up falling 4-3 to extend their losing streak to seven games.

"Once again, we made a rally there late," manager Davey Martinez said with a sigh. "But we've got to start rallying from the first inning on. I sound like a broken record, but we've got to remember we play nine innings. The first inning means a lot, too, not just the last two. We've got to come out and work good at-bats the first few innings, try to score first."

Unable to do anything offensively all afternoon against Miami’s pitching staff – aside from a second-inning run scored via bases-loaded walk – the Nats at long last strung together a few quality at-bats against Bender in the bottom of the ninth.

Alex Call jumpstarted things with a blooper down the right field line for a leadoff double, then stole third base when the Marlins didn’t bother to hold him on or cover the bag. Josh Bell walked, then both runners advanced on a wild pitch, Call scoring to cut the deficit to 4-2. Luis García Jr. ripped a double to deep right field, putting two in scoring position, still with nobody out. And when Eric Wagaman couldn’t handle Robert Hassell III’s grounder to first for an error, Bell scampered home and García advanced to third, keeping the rally alive.