Nationals' losing streak reaches 10 (updated)

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.

"Believe me, it stinks. Nobody wants to lose 10 in a row. No way," Martinez said. "I don't. I know those guys don't. But we're not going to quit. We're going to keep fighting. That's who we are. I don't quit. I'm not going to quit on those guys. We've got to keep fighting every day."

Martinez, in his eighth year as manager and guiding light of a midseason turnaround with a far more experienced and accomplished team that culminated with a World Series parade in 2019, came under fire over the weekend when he insisted his coaching staff was not to blame for his team’s troubles. His young players responded with their worst performance yet tonight, at least until the last-ditch rally in the ninth.

Rizzo, in his 17th season as general manager, architect of four division champion rosters and that veteran World Series group six years ago, has not seen his offseason moves (made with clear financial limitations from above) improve the young core already in place enough to get his team over the hump in year four of a rebuild.

With 3 1/2 months still to go this season, there is much baseball left to be played. Will the club’s decision-makers opt to stay the course as they did with a much-different roster in 2019, or will someone decide the time has come for some kind of significant change?

"We've got to know we're still a good team," right-hander Michael Soroka said. "We can't let it get out of hand. Obviously, it's getting toward midseason, and any 10-game losing streak hurts. But this is the point where we've got to turn it out and put together a nice win streak on the other side to kind of negate it a little bit. And I think we can. I think we have the group to do it. We have enough veterans in here who have been through it before on both sides and know that we're a click away from starting to put it up."

Everyone seemed in a good mood when they gathered at the ballpark this afternoon, the message from Martinez one of staying positive and trying to play loose despite the presence of the losing streak.

The idea, as always, was to jump on the opposing starter and take an early lead. And Antonio Senzatela seemed like the perfect candidate to take advantage of, given his major league-worst 11.08 ERA in the first inning. The Nationals did indeed to get to the right-hander for a quick run, though they did so entirely because of the misfortunes of the Rockies, not based on anything they actually did themselves.

With two outs and nobody on, Luis García Jr. lofted a high fly ball to the warning track in left-center. Brenton Doyle, last year’s National League Gold Glove Award winner, got himself there in time, raised his glove and missed the ball. García raced all the way to third with a gift of a three-base error. And when Senzatela promptly bounced a breaking ball to Nathaniel Lowe, García scampered home with the evening’s first run.

If that encouraging start was a sign of more positive things to come, it wasn’t. Despite putting at least one runner on base through each of his five innings on the mound, Senzatela did not allow another run to score. The Nationals stranded runners in scoring position in the second, third and fourth innings, never once striking out but consistently making weak contact.

And so Senzatela departed after the fifth having done just what he did to this lineup at Coors Field in April. If the score held up, he was going to improve to 2-0 with an 0.82 ERA and 1.182 WHIP in two starts against the Nats this season. His numbers against everyone else: 0-10 with an 8.10 ERA and 2.117 WHIP.

"You've got to keep going," said Lowe, who did homer in the eighth and double in the ninth off Colorado relievers. "You've got to trust the guys next to you. You can't press and solve it all in one at-bat, or one day. But the second you quit, the game will steamroll you."

The Nationals trailed because they once again could not muster any semblance of sustained offense, and because their own starter – who for much of the night looked more dominant than his opponent – was once again done by a couple of killer mistakes.

Soroka struck out nine batters over six innings, and he surrendered only five hits. But two of those hits left the yard, with Thairo Estrada taking him deep to left in the second and Michael Toglia blasting a two-run shot to right in the fourth. Each homer came on a fastball over the plate, mistake pitches that cost the right-hander and his team dearly.

Soroka, who admittedly did a nice job pitching his way out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth to end his night, nevertheless has now surrendered 10 homers in 48 innings this season. That rate of 1.9 allowed per nine innings is approaching twice his career mark of 1.1.

"The solo homer, I can swallow," he said. "It's a good piece of hitting; he went backside. But the yank down and in to Toglia can't happen. I've just got to be better than that. I know I am better than that."

It got no better when Martinez turned to his bullpen, hoping that group could at least keep the game close. It didn’t come close to keeping the game close.

Cole Henry, who hadn’t allowed a run in 14 consecutive games until recently, allowed all four batters he faced tonight to score, serving up back-to-back homers to Hunter Goodman and Ryan McMahon to blow the game open. Jackson Rutledge followed him and proceeded to give up his own set of back-to-back homers (to Toglia and Sam Hilliard). Eduardo Salazar entered for the eighth and immediately gave up a homer to Mickey Moniak on his very first pitch.

"It's kind of the thing I'm having to learn as a bullpen guy: As a starter, you have a couple innings to figure something out. As a reliever, you don't have time," said Henry, a starter throughout his minor league career now pitching out of the bullpen. "You've got to figure it out. For me, it's just trying to get back to the basics, stay within myself and not try to do too much."

As the Rockies, on pace for the worst record in major league history, circled the bases for the fifth time in a span of eight batters, the Nationals Park crowd booed and then booed some more. There would be some cheers in the bottom of the ninth when the home team tried to mount a last-ditch rally and scored four runs to trim the deficit to four. But that wasn't nearly enough to avoid consecutive loss No. 10, one that can only leave club officials contemplating whether the time has come to do something about it.

"Honestly, for me, I try to look at the positives," Martinez said when asked how he processed the boos, adding: "What I look at is, this team doesn't quit. We have life at the end. They don't give in. We had good at-bats. For me, now we have to take those at-bats into the early part of the game. That's going to be the key."