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 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 for the previous two games.

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.

“Tough to see here in a day game," Martinez said after the game of his reasoning to switch the infielders around. "We talked about that earlier. Right from the get-go, we thought Tena will be playing third base today, just because in a day game, it's tough to see over there.”

“Just keeping the same focus," Tena said, via interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. "I know I'm going to play a little bit more third here on this team. But I also need to play second. But my main focus is going to be playing third.”

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.

“I don't think the shadow of the sun is really a problem," said Tena.

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.

“I thought we were executing our pitches well today," Williams said. "When we go back through at-bats, you tip your hat to those guys. They were hitting some executed pitches. They put the ball just out of reach of guys or where we weren't today."

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 the rookie had a two-hit game 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.

“We're trying to get on fastballs today," Martinez said. "He was throwing hard day. Typically he's around 94 to 96 (mph). He was 98 today. So you got to get it ready early, but you got to see the ball in the zone.”

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.

The Nationals ended the day after hitting into three double plays, going 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position and leaving seven runners on base.

“We had a chance to go ahead early, and just could get the job done," Martinez said. "In those situations, we gotta keep that line moving. We talked about that all the time. Today it didn't happen and big double plays killed us today.”

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.

“It's a tough way to end the series, especially after a high note yesterday for the guys," Williams said. "We're gonna see the positives that we can from this series and take it into Baltimore knowing what we need to do.”