ATLANTA – After rallying to win last night, the Nationals were in position this afternoon to split this four-game series with the Braves. And given how the frustration mounted over the recent seven-game losing streak, that would have been considered a win in this first leg of a seven-game road trip.
The Nats were able to overcome some early mistakes Wednesday. Not a great recipe for success, but they did just enough to scratch out a win. Unfortunately, that was not the case in this matinee finale.
Facing a familiar deficit from last night by the middle innings, the Nationals dropped their third game at Truist Park by a score of 5-2 in front of an announced crowd of 34,074. And they can really only blame themselves.
Davey Martinez once again reconfigured his infield defense. With Luis García Jr. landing on the paternity list earlier this week, the manager moved José Tena from third base to second and inserted Amed Rosario at the hot corner.
That was costly a couple of nights ago when both infielders made mistakes on routine plays. So Martinez swapped them today, and at first, it paid dividends.
Tena made a nice leaping grab of a Marcell Ozuna liner to end the first inning. But his throwing error put a runner on with one out in the third. Eli White eventually came around to score on a stolen base and RBI single by Nick Allen, which should have been fielded by shortstop CJ Abrams, at the bottom of the Braves lineup.
To be fair to Tena, Nathaniel Lowe had a chance to make a play on the error, but he couldn’t complete the catch at first. Lowe did make up for it with a diving stop of a 103 mph hot shot from Marcell Ozuna to end the inning and limit the damage.
But the Braves’ big inning came in the fifth after starter Trevor Williams hit Ozzie Albies with a pitch to lead off the frame. Three straight singles off the right-hander (one being another hard-hit grounder that Lowe couldn’t stop) gave the Braves a 3-0 lead. And then a sacrifice fly off Brad Lord made it 4-0.
That was an unfortunate ending to Williams’ afternoon after a strong start. He had pitched four strong innings on an efficient 59 pitches with only two hits and the one unearned run charged to his line. But the leadoff hit-batter spelled his doom in the fifth.
Meanwhile, the Nats offense had nothing going against AJ Smith-Shawver.
They were able to load the bases in second with a walk, double and another walk. But Jacob Young, starting today in place of Dylan Crews after a two-hit night last night, grounded into a double play to end the early threat.
Starting with that double play, Smith-Shawver retired 10 batters in a row through the fifth, mostly with the help of his splitter, with which he recorded all six of his strikeouts.
The Nats finally got a break to go their way when CJ Abrams broke that streak with a leadoff single in the sixth. He came around to score after stealing second (following a Nats challenge to overturn the call) and an Austin Riley fielding error.
Abrams provided the Nats’ only other run with a leadoff home run off left-hander Dylan Lee in the eighth, his second of the series.
But the Braves got that run right back in the bottom of the inning on an RBI single to the right side of the infield that Rosario couldn’t get to.
So it was the Nats couldn’t overcome their earlier mistakes, unlike they did to snap their losing streak. Now they head to Baltimore for Rivalry Weekend with the Orioles, having only enjoyed the feeling of victory for 16 ½ hours.