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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.
"I think we just had more energy in the ninth inning," García said, via interpreter Mauricio Ortiz. "We were more competitive, and there were things that were going our way."
Needing to push across one more run to tie the game, the Nationals watched as Keibert Ruiz (pinch-hitting for Riley Adams) grounded out to first. And after CJ Abrams was intentionally walked to load the bases, Amed Rosario lofted a fly ball to shallow left field. With pinch-runner Jacob Young poised to tag up, third base coach Ricky Gutierrez instead put up the stop sign as Kyle Stowers’ throw sailed well wide of the plate and into foul territory.
That left it all up to James Wood, who had to face just-inserted Miami closer Calvin Faucher. The young star popped the ball up down the left field line, with shortstop Otto Lopez ultimately catching it for the 27th out as he bumped into Stowers.
"We had some at-bats where we chased," Martinez said. "In those situations, you want to try to get a ball up that you can drive in the air. I know Rosario tried to get the ball up. He hit a fly ball, but not deep enough. Some of those at-bats, we just have to understand what the situation is and try to get the ball out in the outfield. ... We had the right guy up at the end. He just missed that ball, got underneath it a little bit."
The Nats saw their losing streak grow to seven, including two straight to the cellar dwellers of the National League East (who have now won four of five against them this season). At 30-40, they are a season-worst 10 games under .500.
They've now scored 30 total runs in 12 games this month, and nine of those came late during Friday night’s 11-9 loss when they were desperately to claw their way back from a six-run deficit. They’ve scored 21 runs in 11 other games this June.
Asked how much of those recent struggles are on the coaches vs. on the players, Martinez offered up an impassioned defense of his coaching staff.
"It's never on coaching. Never on coaching," the eighth-year manager said. "Coaches work their asses off every single day. We're not going to finger-point here and say it's coaches. It's never on the coaches. They work hard. The message is clear. All the work is done prior. Sometimes, they've got to go out there and play the game. It's always been about the players, always. I played this game a long time. Never once did I blame the coaches for anything. ...
"We can't hit for them. We can't catch the balls for them. We can't pitch for them. We can't throw strikes for them. They've got to do that."
With a clubhouse full of young players who are with their first major league team, there aren't many Nationals who have the ability to compare this coaching staff to others. Bell, who is on his sixth team during a 10-year career, offered a less-definitive, more-diplomatic answer to the question than his manager.
"I’ve been all over. I feel like coaching is a very tough gig," Bell said. "They’re here before we are, and they leave after we leave. We all have different personalities in here, and sometimes we’re willing to listen and sometimes we’re not. They’re just trying to chip away and help us become the best version of ourselves, and hopefully it shows up in between the lines. It’s a long season. It can be a grind. But it’s not about pointing fingers. It’s about looking in the mirror for us as players and understanding that if we do what we can, whatever we’re able to do on the baseball field, we’ll be in a good place.”
There were other issues contributing to today’s loss beyond the lack of offense until the final inning, including some shaky work from an overworked group of relievers and a costly error by García, who dropped a popup over his left shoulder in the top of the eighth to allow what proved to be the decisive run to score.
"There's no excuse," García said. "I should've made that play. It's just something that happens in baseball."
After getting only 3 1/3 innings out of Mitchell Parker and then needing four relievers to throw a combined 113 pitches after that during Friday night’s 11-9 loss, the Nationals handed the ball to Trevor Williams today needing length from their No. 5 starter, even if it included a number of runs.
Williams managed to provide some length while also keeping the run count to a relative minimum in one of his more effective starts of the season. The veteran right-hander did have to work for it, though.
Williams pitched his way out of a two-on, two-out jam in the first, striking out Stowers with a changeup. He stranded another runner on base in the second, retiring the bottom of the Marlins order. He couldn’t make it through the third unscathed, done in by a leadoff double by Jesús Sánchez and an RBI single by Liam Hicks.
Williams would retire eight in a row after the Hicks single, though, making it through five innings of one-run ball on 70 pitches. Martinez has often pulled him at that juncture, not wanting him to face an opposing lineup three times in the same game. But perhaps given the bullpen considerations today, Martinez felt compelled to keep his starter out there, so Williams took the mound for the top of the sixth.
He lasted three batters, surrendering two groundball singles before getting a popout. Martinez decided to make the move there, Williams departing at the 80-pitch mark and Brad Lord entering from the bullpen for the second time in roughly 15 hours. Lord has been highly effective, but the rookie also just threw 38 pitches over two scoreless innings. He proceeded to allow an inherited runner to score (on another groundball single) and then served up a solo homer to Sánchez after retaking the mound for the top of the seventh.
"Every start, I'm giving it the best I can," Williams said. "If it's 70 bullets that day or 100, I'm going to give everything that I can. It was unfortunate in that sixth inning we get a ball that gets away from me, and then a ball that gets hit to the perfect spot. It's unfortunate I couldn't capitalize on getting through the sixth. But the guys that come in, they're able to shut the door. They've been doing it all year. I have no problem turning it over to those guys."
All told, Lord threw 50 pitches over parts of four relief innings in back-to-back games played with minimal downtime in between. It would be a lot to ask of an experienced bullpen arm, let alone a rookie who was a starter throughout his career and is now learning on the fly how to handle a reliever’s workload at the big league level.
"He had the same stuff as he had yesterday," Martinez said. "He just missed location on one. But he threw the ball well. He yanked a fastball to Sánchez. It was supposed to be away. It was in."
In spite of all that, the Nationals’ pitching staff still allowed only three runs through those first seven innings. A modestly productive lineup would have been able to overcome that. Not this lineup, not on this day.
Whatever good vibes were created by the seven runs they scored late Friday night didn’t show up this afternoon, despite Miami finding itself in a real pitching predicament. Only hours after using up seven relievers to win Friday night’s game, manager Clayton McCullough was going with a bullpen game.
That meant three pitching changes within the first three innings, from left-handed opener Cade Gibson to right-hander Ronny Henriquez to lefty Anthony Veneziano to right-handed bulk guy Janson Junk. The only real production the Nats came up with against that group came when they chose not to swing the bat.
A typically impatient lineup managed to show enough restraint to draw three walks in the bottom of the second, including back-to-back free passes from some of the unlikeliest batters in baseball. But Hassell finally drew his first walk in 72 major league plate appearances to load the bases, then Adams finally drew his first walk in his 51st plate appearance of the season to force in the Nats’ first run of the game.
That would be their only run against those relievers, who dominated so long as they kept the ball close enough to the strike zone to induce swings. Junk, in particular, cruised along, tossing 3 2/3 perfect innings on a scant 33 pitches before finally surrendering one hit (a single) in the seventh. He wound up going 5 2/3 innings of scoreless ball on 64 pitches before handing it over to Bender for what turned into a dramatic – but ultimately unfulfilling – bottom of the ninth.
"Baseball's a funny game," Bell said. "It's not always going to come all at once. But when it does come, you want to capitalize. And we were just a little bit short today."
