Marlins 5, Nationals 2
That was kind of a nightmare. It looked like the Nats and Marlins were playing in slow motion at times on Thursday afternoon with temperatures well above 90 and plenty of humidity to go with it. The game took 3 hours and 38 minutes to complete and was rife with sloppy play and mental errors. Unfortunately for the Nats they won that battle and therefore lost the game. Read more in our game story here, if you dare. In the end, Washington has dropped five games in a row and nine of 13 since the All-Star break as a once-promising season – or at least a winning one – slips away.
“I know everyone’s tired of hearing how we’re going to turn it around. But the last three games we’ve shown some good signs,” shortstop Ian Desmond said. “We played with a lot more energy towards the end of the game [Wednesday night] and definitely with a lot more today. [Ryan Zimmerman’s] heating up. It was big for us to have Jayson [Werth] get that RBI single. [John] Lannan towards the end of his outing really got things going. There’s definitely a lot of good signs. It just didn’t work today. Hopefully it will tomorrow.”
Emilio Bonifacio, Florida’s third baseman and a former Nat, extended his career-best hitting streak to 26 games with a sixth-inning single. Zimmerman batted 4-for-5 for Washington, including a double and a run scored, and is now 13-for-27 since last Friday. Michael Morse and Desmond both walked twice, but the Nats stranded 11 runners with at least one left on base in eight of the nine innings. That’s just not good enough. No one blamed the conditions. But something was off all afternoon.
“I don’t think it was the heat,” manager Davey Johnson said. “I think it was a [pitcher’s] command problem. And they took more advantage of it than we did.”
The Marlins are no slouch anymore, 18-8 since falling 11 games under .500 on June 28 and now 2 ½ games in front of the Nats, who sit in last place in the National League East. Washington was last six games under .500 on June 12 and the players don’t feel all that great to be back in that spot, to be honest.
“Just got to battle through it,” Lannan said. “We were going pretty good there for a little bit. Think we just got to get through it. Florida had tough times, too. Now they’re playing pretty good baseball. It’s not a team that’s struggling. They’re hitting the ball well. They’ve got a pretty good lineup. Can’t get down on ourselves.”
Lannan clarified what happened on the bunt play in the fourth inning when he failed to look at Mike Cameron at third base. When he fielded the ball off the bat of pitcher Brad Hand he heard two teammates yelling “One, one, one!” Lannan admitted he should have looked. But instead he whirled and fired to first as Cameron raced home for Florida’s second run.
Another rough outing for reliever Henry Rodriguez. In his last seven appearances – 9 2/3 innings in all – Rodriguez has allowed 12 earned runs on 10 hits with nine walks and three wild pitches. You wonder if the Nats need to add a bullpen arm this weekend. Johnson isn’t comfortable with the situation out there right now. Rodriguez and Sean Burnett are struggling and Todd Coffey has had his troubles, too. That bridge to Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen just isn’t there. It would help if a starting pitcher could go seven innings. That doesn’t seem in the cards when Chien-Ming Wang makes his first start in over two years on Friday night against the Mets.
“You still have to look at the big picture here. We got a lot of guys that are still learning their way,” Werth said. “I think the future’s really bright for this team. We got to keep going. We can’t let this get us down. We got to keep pushing. Big picture this team is going to be a force – definitely while I’m here. I think this is going to be a really good team. We’re young. We’re inexperienced. But we’re very talented. We’ve got a lot to look forward to.”
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