SAN DIEGO – When the Nationals enjoyed their record-setting, 10-run first inning four weeks ago in Arizona, they simultaneously wrapped up a 15-12 record for May, the team’s first winning month since August 2023 and only its second winning month at all since the rebuild began in earnest in July 2021.

It was cause for mild celebration, but it wasn’t the end-all, be-all. It was only the start of something bigger, the Nats believed at the time.

“I would encourage this group to get used to winning,” first baseman Nathaniel Lowe said that night in Phoenix, “because that’s what we strive to do every day. But we’ll take this month and obviously keep going into June and look for another winning month.”

The Nationals won’t finish June with a winning month. They won’t even come close. Even if they sweep the Angels this weekend in Anaheim, they’ll merely improve to 8-18 for the month. That would still be tied for the eighth-worst month in club history. If, god forbid, they get swept, they’ll finish 5-21. That would represent the single worst month in club history.

Suffice it to say, things have taken a decided turn for the worse around here over the last four weeks.

After just six starts following his promotion to High-A Wilmington, Travis Sykora, the top prospect in the Nationals’ farm system, is being promoted to Double-A Harrisburg.

The promotion, confirmed by a source familiar with the move, comes after the 21-year-old right-hander dominated the South Atlantic League by going 3-0 with a 1.21 ERA, 0.674 WHIP, 47 strikeouts and only eight walks over 29 ⅔ innings with the Blue Rocks.

He only surrendered 12 hits (zero home runs) and had a stellar 14.3 strikeouts per nine innings and 5.88 strikeout-to-walk ratio.

Sykora earned his first promotion to High-A after only two starts with Single-A Fredericksburg following his return from offseason hip surgery. He held opponents to one hit, one run and one walk while striking out 14 in just five innings with the FredNats before moving up to Wilmington.

The Nats selected Sykora out of high school in the third round of the 2023 MLB Draft, signing him overslot to keep him away from his commitment to the University of Texas. He was named Carolina League Pitcher of the Year in 2024 after going 5-3 with a 2.33 ERA, 0.906 WHIP, 129 strikeouts and 13.7 strikeouts per nine innings across 20 starts.

SAN DIEGO – The Nationals left town following Wednesday afternoon's agonizing 1-0 loss to the Padres and are spending their off-day up the road in Orange County before opening a weekend series Friday against the Angels. Your trusty beat writer chose to remain in San Diego for this off-day, because ... well, do I really have to explain this to you? It's San Diego, for crying out loud!

There will be time to relax later. Before then, it's time to answer your questions about the Nats. It's been quite the eventful few weeks for the team, from the 11-game losing streak to Brady House's debut to the start of a West Coast trip that has included some legitimately big moments but unfortunately has also included four more losses in six games, three of them by one run.

I'll do my best to tackle whatever subjects you propose today (with reason and good taste, of course). And keep in mind the 3-hour time difference, so I may get started a bit later than usual. If you've got something you'd like to ask, just submit it in the comments section below, then check back for my replies ...

SAN DIEGO – MacKenzie Gore has pitched like an ace this season. He leads the National League in strikeouts. His ERA resides in the low-3.00s. Only five major leaguers have totaled more than his 11 quality starts.

So how come Gore now sports a 3-8 record? Because no matter how well he’s pitched, his teammates can’t seem to consistently provide him the kind of support the left-hander needs to emerge victorious.

That troubling trend reached a new low this afternoon at Petco Park, where Gore was good once again and once again got no help from the rest of the Nationals during a disheartening 1-0 loss to the Padres.

"That's on us. That's on the lineup," center fielder Jacob Young said. "He keeps us in almost every game, and we just haven't been able to score the runs, especially in games like this where it's one or two. We haven't been able to scrap them together and get him some more wins. But he's had our back on the mound. Hopefully in the second half of the year, we can have his."

Gore allowed only one run over six innings, rarely surrendering loud contact. But San Diego’s Nick Pivetta allowed zero runs over seven innings, and that was the difference in the game.

SAN DIEGO – As was the case Sunday in Los Angeles, the Nationals have an opportunity today to win a series against a good opponent. They put themselves in that position by thumping the Padres on Monday night before coming up just short Tuesday night. So it will require a victory this afternoon to win the series and improve to 3-3 on the West Coast trip heading into a much-needed day off before the Southern California jaunt concludes this weekend in Anaheim.

The good news: MacKenzie Gore is on the mound, facing the team that drafted and then traded him. Gore has pitched here each of the last two seasons, so this is nothing special for him. The lefty just wants to go out there and do what he’s doing through the majority of the season’s first half: provide length with minimal damage and a lot of strikeouts. The Padres' lineup is no joke, but he’s plenty motivated to deliver for his team today.

At the plate, the Nationals will try to get to Nick Pivetta the way they did to Ryan Hergert on Tuesday night, while perhaps converting a few more times in clutch situations. (They scored three early runs but went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, missing some golden opportunities to extend their lead.) Pivetta, of course, is the long-ago Nats prospect who was traded to the Phillies for Jonathan Papelbon nearly a decade ago. He’s fashioned a solid career since and has been more than solid so far in his first year with the Padres, entering today 7-2 with a 3.64 ERA and 1.083 WHIP in 15 starts.

One important note to consider as the game plays out: Robert Suarez dropped his appeal of the three-game suspension MLB handed down to him last week for intentionally throwing at the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, once the league reduced the sentence to two games. So the Padres will be without their closer this afternoon, should this game be close come the ninth inning.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at SAN DIEGO PADRES
Where: Petco Park
Gametime: 4:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 71 degrees, wind 10 mph left field to right field

SAN DIEGO – When he was called up to the big leagues the last two seasons, Drew Millas found himself walking through the Nationals' clubhouse introducing himself to a good number of unfamiliar faces. When he arrived at Petco Park on Tuesday afternoon, the 27-year-old catcher assumed it would be more of the same, until he looked around the room and realized he already knew almost every single player on the current roster.

“I came in and expected to do the usual, like: ‘Hey, I’m Drew. I’m Drew. I’m Drew. I'm Drew,’” he said. “I was just like: ‘Hey, what’s up? Good to see you!’ It’s a good thing to have familiar faces here, and it makes me really comfortable.”

With so many young players who have come through Triple-A Rochester in recent years on the Nationals’ major league roster now, Millas is plenty comfortable in these surroundings. It’s now up to him to take advantage of whatever playing opportunities he gets to convince the organization he should stick around for more than a week or two.

Summoned from Rochester when Keibert Ruiz was placed on the 10-day injured list with a head contusion after getting struck by a foul ball in the dugout Monday night, Millas is now the clear backup to Riley Adams, who takes over as the team’s No. 1 catcher. Manager Davey Martinez said he expects Adams to start the bulk of the games behind the plate, and sure enough he’s back in there for this afternoon’s series finale against the Padres only hours after catching Tuesday’s game.

Millas will probably get one start this weekend in Anaheim, at which point he’ll hope to show the strides he’s made both at the plate and behind it. He opened his season at Triple-A with a disappointing .229/.287/.344 slash line in his first 35 games. In 17 games since, he’s put together a much better .288/.348/.441 slash line, getting back to what he believes he does best.

SAN DIEGO – Even as they put together a bunch of quality at-bats and jumped out to an early three-run lead tonight at Petco Park, the Nationals knew deep down they had squandered some opportunities to put the game away and had let the Padres keep it close enough to set up a potential comeback.

Sure enough, that early three-run lead evaporated over the course of the middle innings. And when they couldn’t mount any kind of late rally against one of the league’s best bullpens, the Nats found themselves on the wrong end of a 4-3 loss to San Diego.

The Padres scored all four runs from the fourth through the sixth innings, all of the runs charged to Trevor Williams even though the last of them crossed the plate after he departed. The Nationals, who totaled six hits through their first four innings at the plate, managed only one more the rest of the way.

With one last shot at rallying in the ninth, they went down quietly against All-Star closer Robert Suarez, who reportedly dropped his appeal of a three-game suspension - which Major League Baseball imposed on Friday after Suarez intentionally threw at the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani on Thursday - after it was reduced to two games. Suarez won’t be available for Wednesday afternoon’s series finale, but he was still allowed to take the mound tonight in a one-run game.

"They've got a really good bullpen," manager Davey Martinez said. "We knew that coming in. The objective for us is to try to score first and get on the board, beat the starters up a bit earlier. Once they get into that bullpen, it's tough."

SAN DIEGO – The Nationals placed Keibert Ruiz on the 10-day injured list this evening with a head contusion, the result of an errant foul ball that struck the catcher on the right side of his head as he watched Friday night’s game from the dugout.

Drew Millas was recalled from Triple-A Rochester to take Ruiz’s roster spot and will back up Riley Adams, who takes over the team’s No. 1 catcher for now.

Ruiz was standing next to Adams during the top of the fourth Friday night at Petco Park when teammate Josh Bell scorched a foul ball toward them from close range. The ball whizzed past everyone but ricocheted off the back wall of the dugout and struck Ruiz on the head. He immediately retreated to the clubhouse alongside director of athletic training Paul Lessard and was taken to an area hospital for a CT scan.

That scan showed no evidence of a concussion or any fractures, but Ruiz has a lump on the side of his head and has complained of headaches and dizziness since the incident, prompting the team to place him on the 10-day IL rather than the 7-day concussion IL (which requires an official concussion diagnosis).

“I don’t feel 100 percent, and I don’t feel good enough to catch today,” Ruiz said. “If I get another foul ball in my head, I don’t think that would be good. I have two kids that need me. I’ve got to take care of my health.”

SAN DIEGO – The Nationals showed up Monday night at Petco Park, blasting a couple of home runs and delivering a flurry of clutch hits en route to a 10-6 win over the Padres. They’re 2-2 so far on this West Coast trip, and they’ve had a real chance to win every game, which isn’t too shabby, all things considered. The key now is sustaining that, and they’ll attempt to do it tonight in the second game of their series.

At the plate, the Nats will be facing an unknown opponent in Ryan Bergert. The rookie right-hander, drafted in the sixth round in 2021 out of West Virginia, makes his ninth career appearance, his fifth career start. He’s been pretty good to date in this role, delivering a 2.25 ERA through those four previous starts. He’s reached the sixth inning three times, though he has yet to complete that frame. He features a mid-90s fastball and two breaking balls in the mid-to-high 80s, plus an occasional changeup to left-handed batters.

Trevor Williams returns to his hometown of San Diego, hoping to turn in his third consecutive solid start. The veteran right-hander held both the Marlins and Rockies to two runs over 5 1/3 innings, but he’s facing a much more imposing Padres lineup tonight.

The Nationals have put Keibert Ruiz on the 10-day injured list after he was struck by a foul ball into the dugout last night. The team has recalled Drew Millas from Triple-A Rochester to fill the roster spot.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at SAN DIEGO PADRES
Where: Petco Park
Gametime: 9:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 66 degrees, wind 8 mph left field to right field

SAN DIEGO – Keibert Ruiz never had time to react, nor could he have anticipated what happened in the top of the fourth Monday night at Petco Park.

The Nationals’ 10-6 victory over the Padres was marred somewhat by the freak incident that forced Ruiz to an area hospital for a CT scan after he was struck by Josh Bell’s errant foul ball on the left side of his head.

Ruiz was watching the game from the top railing of the dugout when Bell fouled off Stephen Kolek’s pitch and sent the ball on a direct line toward the third base dugout. Nationals players and coaches barely saw it whiz past their heads, and nobody saw it carom off the dugout’s back wall and strike Ruiz on the side of his head.

The 26-year-old wasn’t wearing his catcher’s gear, because his spot in the lineup was approaching. He immediately grabbed his head and headed down the dugout steps and toward the visitors’ clubhouse as director of athletic training Paul Lessard followed close behind.

“When he went down, we kind of got scared a little bit,” manager Davey Martinez said. “He had a nice lump on his head.”

SAN DIEGO – It seems to be defying logic, because the opposing pitching staffs are much better than what they faced last week and the ball isn’t supposed to carry better in the cool Southern California air than it does in the hot and humid nastiness back home.

But sometimes you have to throw logic out the door and just embrace what you’re seeing with your own eyes. And four games into what should be a tough West Coast trip for a previously reeling team, the Nationals are putting together the kind of offensive performances they desperately needed last week when they were losing to the Marlins and Rockies.

They scored 6.3 runs per game over the weekend at Dodger Stadium. And in tonight’s series opener on a 64-degree late-June evening at Petco Park, they took it a step further, blasting their way to a 10-6 win over the Padres behind three hits a piece from two of the young stars they acquired from San Diego three years ago.

"I just think we were kind of due," left fielder James Wood said. "We've been hitting the ball hard, just right at people. I feel like not much has changed, maybe a few more homers. But I just think the balls we've hit hard are finding gaps."

CJ Abrams went 3-for-5 and scored three runs. Wood went 3-for-5 and drove in four runs, three of them coming on his latest towering home run, this one clanging off the right field foul pole for the 22-year-old’s 22nd round tripper of the season.

SAN DIEGO – As he watches his teammates play every night from the dugout, Dylan Crews tries to trick his mind into thinking he’s still a part of the active roster. Deep down, he knows he’s not, and there’s nothing he can do on the field to help the Nationals win. But it’s the only way the rookie outfielder knows how to keep his mind in the right place as he navigates his way through rehab from a strained oblique.

“I’ve been good,” he said today as the Nats prepared to open a three-game series against the Padres. “I’m trying to stay locked in as much as I can. It’s all new to me. I try to stay locked in as if I was playing the game every day. But right now, it’s a different chapter in this whole story. I’m just trying to stay locked in and win my day every day.”

It’s been nearly five weeks now since Crews suffered the injury on a check-swing. The good news: He was finally cleared to travel with the rest of the team on this nine-game West Coast trip, and he recently began taking some very light swings to test his core.

It’s not much. Crews isn’t allowed to take full swings or hit an actual baseball. He’s running at about 85-to-90 percent, he surmised, but only on a treadmill. He’s not doing any kind of work on the field yet.

But he’s making progress, and the prospect of ramping things up looms in the not-too-distant future.

SAN DIEGO – Hello from beautiful Petco Park, where the Nationals begin the second leg of their three-city trek through Southern California tonight with the opener of a three-game series against the Padres. Though they legitimately played well for most of the weekend series in L.A., they made just enough mistakes at critical moments and wound up losing two of three to the Dodgers. Now they try to flip that script against a very good San Diego club.

It's up to Mitchell Parker to hold the Padres lineup in check. The left-hander was stuck in a pretty good rut there for a while, but he bounced back big-time in his last start (admittedly against the Rockies). In that game, he allowed one run over six innings, striking out eight without issuing a walk. It’s probably too much to ask for that kind of performance tonight against a much better lineup, but it’s not too much to ask Parker to give his team a chance to win.

At the plate, the Nationals will try to score early against Padres starter Stephen Kolek, who pitched out of the bullpen last year but has become a full-time starter this year. It’s been kind of all-or-nothing for the right-hander. In four of his nine starts, he’s posted a zero. In the other five, he’s surrendered at least three runs.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at SAN DIEGO PADRES
Where: Petco Park
Gametime: 9:40 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN2, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Mostly clear, 65 degrees, wind 7 mph out to right field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
1B Nathaniel Lowe
DH Josh Bell
3B Brady House
RF Daylen Lile
C Keibert Ruiz
CF Jacob Young

LOS ANGELES – It’s easy to overlook now, because of the ultimately lopsided nature of Sunday’s game, but the Nationals and Dodgers were actually engaged in a tight, closely played contest into the seventh inning.

Even after Jose A. Ferrer served up Max Muncy’s grand slam in the bottom of the sixth, the Nats only trailed 4-3, with plenty of opportunity left to make up that slim deficit. And when Jacob Young drew a one-out walk in the top of the seventh, with the top of the lineup now due to bat, they looked like they might be in business.

What transpired next was unfortunately the latest in a growing list of baserunning gaffes by the Nationals. Young took off for second, hoping to steal the base and put himself in scoring position for CJ Abrams. And he beat Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing’s throw and shortstop Mookie Betts’ tag.

Except for one key point: Young overslid the bag, and because Betts held the tag throughout the entire process, Young was called out, killing the Nats’ positive momentum at a crucial point in the game.

The speedy center fielder (who scraped up his right hand but was able to finish the game) defended his decision to run against Los Angeles lefty Anthony Banda in that spot but conceded his mistake at the end of the play.

LOS ANGELES – Michael Soroka was cruising, - dominating, if we’re being honest - a Dodgers lineup that rarely finds itself in such a position. And thanks to Nathaniel Lowe’s latest clutch blast, the Nationals were in control at Chavez Ravine, looking to pull off what could only be considered an improbable weekend series victory over the defending World Series champs.

The sixth inning, though, has been Soroka’s personal nightmare most of the season. And today, it became not only Soroka’s nightmare, but Jose A. Ferrer’s as well. Only to be upstaged minutes later by the absolute disaster Ryan Loutos and Cole Henry made of the seventh inning.

Thus did the Nats somehow turn a three-run lead into an eight-run deficit in the span of about 25 minutes at Dodger Stadium, suffering one of their worst meltdowns of the year en route to a 13-7 loss that doesn’t begin to hint at how winnable this game actually was at one point.

Max Muncy’s grand slam off Ferrer flipped the affair from Washington's to Los Angeles' favor. Shohei Ohtani’s three-run triple off Loutos added to the misery. And Muncy’s three-run homer off Henry – giving the veteran infielder seven RBIs in two innings – felt downright embarrassing to the Nationals, who were in prime position to win not only this series but the season matchup with the Dodgers, only to go down in flames in the finale.

"I don't think you want to look at the score. A loss is a loss, whether you lose by one or you lose by six," said center fielder Jacob Young, whose team trailed by 10 before scoring four runs in the top of the ninth off position player Kiké Hernández. "I thought we actually played a pretty good game, and they had two big swings that blew it open and caused it to be uglier than it was. It was a chance to win a series, and that's what we wanted to do when we came here. We just didn't get it done."

LOS ANGELES – Guess who has played some pretty good baseball here the last two nights? Yeah, that would be your Washington Nationals, who narrowly lost Friday night’s series opener and then bounced back by blasting five homers Saturday night to convincingly beat the Dodgers. And just like that, they have an opportunity today to both win this series and win the season series against the defending World Series champs. Not too shabby for a team that just lost 11 in a row, huh?

The challenge today is a unique one, because the Nats will be facing Shohei Ohtani as both a hitter and as a pitcher. They’ve done a nice job against him as a hitter so far (1-for-7, two walks, three strikeouts). It’ll be up to Michael Soroka and the bullpen to try to keep that trend going this afternoon.

How will the Nationals’ lineup fare against Ohtani the pitcher? He’s only faced the franchise once before (April 2023 in Anaheim) and he dominated (seven scoreless innings of one-hit ball, despite five walks and a hit batter). Given the fact this is only his second start back from elbow surgery – and he couldn’t go on a minor league rehab assignment because he’s still on the active roster as a hitter – the Japanese phenom is expected to throw only two innings, maybe three if he’s really cruising. So really this game may hinge more on the Nats’ ability to do some damage against the Dodgers’ bullpen than their opener.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at LOS ANGELES DODGERS
Where: Dodger Stadium
Gametime: 4:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Sunny, 78 degrees, wind 4 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
1B Nathaniel Lowe
DH Josh Bell
3B Brady House
RF Daylen Lile
C Keibert Ruiz
CF Jacob Young

LOS ANGELES – As bad as they looked over the last week against two of baseball’s least imposing opponents, the Nationals have had a weird knack for playing their best against the best. It sounds counterintuitive, but these guys have looked significantly better this year against the Dodgers than they have against the Marlins or Rockies.

Having already secured one series win vs. the defending World Series champs at home in April, the Nats now improbably have a chance to win another one against them Sunday afternoon after blasting five homers tonight in a 7-3 victory before a stunned, sellout crowd at Dodger Stadium.

James Wood, Luis García Jr., CJ Abrams and Nathaniel Lowe all homered on a cool L.A. summer night, with Lowe going deep twice for the 100th and 101st home runs of his career in one of the Nationals’ best offensive performances in some time, especially considering the level of competition.

"It's just fun," Wood said. "It's always good when the dugout is jumping like that. The more, the merrier."

A raucous crowd of 54,154 – largest in the majors so far this season – couldn’t process what it was watching. Chances are, fans who stayed up late back in D.C. were likewise having a hard time comprehending this explosion from a lineup that had been averaging a mere 2.8 runs per game this month.

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals’ recent offensive struggles haven’t fallen on the shoulders of CJ Abrams. If anything, the shortstop and leadoff man has performed better as the team has performed worse as a whole.

After a sluggish start to his month, Abrams has taken off in the last two weeks. He enters tonight’s game against the Dodgers batting .372 (16-for-43) with three doubles, two homers, four RBIs and four stolen bases over his last 11 games (10 of those losses for the Nats).

Along with a healthy amount of loud contact, Abrams has also shown more patience at the plate, drawing six walks during that 11-game stretch, nearly one-third of his season total.

“We’ve talked to him a lot about being more selective, getting pitches (to hit),” manager Davey Martinez said. “I don’t mind him swinging at the first pitch if it’s a ball he feels like he can drive. But he has been a little more patient, a little more selective. And you see his numbers creeping back up, which is awesome.”

Indeed, Abrams has begun to turn his season back around after a slow stretch. He opened the year in standout form, owner of a .313/.371/.569 slash line through May 20. He then went 8 for his next 60, which brought his season totals down to .260/.327/.456. He hasn’t climbed all the way back yet, but at .279/.354/.478 he now owns numbers more in line with the best version of himself. And his .832 OPS currently leads all qualified National League shortstops.

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals didn’t play poorly Friday night, but they needed to play just a little bit better if they wanted to beat the Dodgers. So that made the 6-5 loss in the series opener both encouraging and discouraging. They pretty much stood toe to toe with the defending champs but ultimately weren’t as good as the competition and lost a close ballgame in the process.

They’ll hope for better results tonight in game two of the weekend series. They’re facing a very different opposing starter from Clayton Kershaw in Dustin May, who of course is right-handed but also throws much harder than Kershaw. Batters are hitting a measly .081 against his four-seam fastball, which averages 95.1 mph. He also throws a ton of sweepers, against which opponents are batting only .219. The Nationals lineup needs to be smart tonight in pitch selection and swing decisions, to say the least.

Jake Irvin, meanwhile, needs to avoid his first-inning troubles (10.80 ERA) and find a way to start his night with a zero on the scoreboard before getting into a groove. Maybe the most extreme example of that issue came in April when Irvin gave up four runs before recording an out to these same Dodgers but then didn’t give up anything else the rest of his outing. Get through that first frame unscathed, and the right-hander could be in good position for a big night.

WASHINGTON NATIONALS at LOS ANGELES DODGERS
Where: Dodger Stadium
Gametime: 10:10 p.m. EDT
TV: MASN, MLB.tv
Radio: 106.7 FM, 87.7 FM (Spanish), MLB.com
Weather: Clear, 69 degrees, wind 5 mph out to center field

NATIONALS
SS CJ Abrams
LF James Wood
2B Luis García Jr.
1B Nathaniel Lowe
3B Brady House
DH Josh Bell
RF Daylen Lile
C Keibert Ruiz
CF Jacob Young

LOS ANGELES – The Nationals arrived here in good spirits late Thursday night, bolstered by a desperately needed, walk-off win to snap an 11-game losing streak. They didn’t know if that effort would carry over into the opener of a nine-game trip in which they’ll never leave Southern California, but if nothing else it did feel like a massive weight was lifted off their shoulders.

To beat the defending World Series champions, though, it requires more than positive vibes. It requires clean baseball, timely hitting and stars rising to the occasion. And during tonight’s 6-5 loss to the Dodgers, the Nats were lacking just a bit in all three aspects.

With a high-profile pitching matchup against Clayton Kershaw, MacKenzie Gore gave up a season-high six runs, all of them scoring with two outs. With multiple chances to deliver a damaging blow to Kershaw, the Nationals lineup went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position. And when they needed a perfect turn of a potential inning-ending double play, they were just a split-second slow, ultimately opening the floodgates for a three-run Dodgers rally that might well have been the difference in the game.

There’s no shame in losing a close ballgame to one of the best teams in baseball. But the Nats weren’t about to rattle off silver linings after their 12th loss in 13 games, especially when this one was quite winnable.

"It's a game of inches," manager Davey Martinez sighed as he wrapped up his postgame press conference.