The National League East standings suggest the Nationals aren’t much worse than the Braves, entering the night trailing their division foes by a mere four games in the battle to finish fourth at the end of a miserable season for both clubs.

The baseball that was on display tonight, though, offered up little evidence these two teams deserve to be lumped into the same category. This 11-3 loss felt far more like the lopsided losses the Nats routinely suffered at the hands of the playoff-bound Braves the previous four years.

At the plate, the Nationals were overwhelmed by a young flamethrower in an Atlanta jersey, in this case the resurgent Spencer Strider, who dominated over seven innings. On the mound, a Nats left-hander finishing out the string of a ragged season was battered around by experienced hitters, in this case Mitchell Parker taking the punishment.

It all made for a familiar, frustrating night on South Capitol Street, where the home team was overmatched in every way by the opposition, even if their respective positions in the standings suggest that shouldn’t have been the case.

"We didn't hit today," interim manager Miguel Cairo said. "They just hit better than us today. They were better. They beat us."

These two foes still meet six more times over the next nine days, including a day-night doubleheader here Tuesday. The Nats can only hope the remaining matchups are more competitive.

It would certainly help if they did more at the plate against Atlanta’s starter, something that did not happen tonight. Strider, still trying to rediscover the best version of himself long after his April 2024 elbow surgery, sure looked like it tonight. The 26-year-old right-hander, who led the NL with 20 wins and 281 strikeouts in 2023, allowed one run on four hits over seven standout innings against a Nationals lineup that couldn’t touch him.

"I know he's not throwing the 98-99 (mph) that he threw (pre-surgery), but his fastball still has got some life," Cairo said. "He's got a really slow curveball that he threw today, and his slider's always been nasty. That was a good pitcher that we faced today."

The only hit of consequence off Strider came via the bat of Daylen Lile, who turned on a second-inning fastball and belted his sixth homer of the season. Lile, who also singled (but was then picked off) in the sixth, raised his OPS to .814. That’s the highest among all NL rookies with at least 300 plate appearances this year, the 22-year-old outfielder trying to make a late charge in a wide-open Rookie of the Year race.

"I just feel like I'm getting more and more comfortable up here," Lile said. "I feel like my confidence has gotten a lot better. The individual stuff is pretty cool. It's tough losing, but it comes with it. I just feel like we're going to be a lot better in the next coming years."

Unable to do anything else against Strider, the Nationals tried to mount a desperate charge late against the Braves bullpen. They did manage to score twice off Connor Seabold in the eighth, but that only brought them to within five runs.

The night actually began in encouraging fashion for Parker, who posted three consecutive zeros to get this one started. He did get into a quick jam in the top of the first, but quickly got out of it thanks to a 5-4-3 double play induced off the bat of Ronald Acuña Jr., the first of eight consecutive batters he retired.

The encouraging portion of Parker’s start, however, ended there, because he came undone in the fourth and fifth innings.

The heart of the Braves lineup strung together three straight hits in the fourth, capped off by Ozzie Albies’ RBI single to center. Parker responded with another double-play grounder, but this one brought home a second run. Then came the big blow in the fifth, when Parker hung a 1-0 curveball right over the heart of the plate to Matt Olson and watched the ball soar 400 feet down the right field line for a killer, three-run homer.

"As a whole, it's a pretty decent game," he said. "Just a few bad pitches. And the bad pitches obviously lined up with a three-run home run, and a couple runs scored. It sucks, but that's baseball."

Under normal circumstances, that probably would’ve ended Parker’s night. But with Tuesday’s doubleheader looming, the Nationals had to conserve their pitching. So Cairo sent his struggling starter back to the mound for the top of the sixth. It took only two batters before the interim manager had to walk out there himself to pull him from the game.

A leadoff double by Ha-Seong Kim and an RBI single by Drake Baldwin extended the Braves’ lead to 6-1 and convinced Cairo it was time to remove his starter, who was up to 103 pitches. Parker departed having been charged with six runs for the eighth time this season, matching a club record set by Patrick Corbin in both 2021 and 2022. His ERA is up to 5.85, shooting past teammate Jake Irvin (5.70) for worst among qualified major league starters this year.

This was also Parker’s league-leading 16th loss of the season. As things currently stand, he’s due to make two more starts, two final opportunities for the left-hander to try to leave a better taste in everyone’s mouths heading into 2026.

"I know he goes out there and competes," Cairo said. "He's a competitor. Today was just one of those days. He left everything up, and you cannot leave anything up against this team right there. They will make you pay."