All good things must come to an end.
The Nationals finally played a sloppy defensive game and didn’t get the kind of starting pitching they’ve come to expect in recent weeks. The result was a 7-4 loss to the Baltimore Orioles at Nationals Park on Sunday afternoon.
Washington (35-37) had its eight-game winning streak snapped and failed to reach .500, which would have been the latest point it did so in a season since the final day of 2005. The Orioles (32-37) salvaged one game in this series thanks in part to homers by J.J. Hardy and Mark Reynolds. Roger Bernadina and Danny Espinosa homered for the Nats.
| Nats notes |
| » To make room for Sunday’s starting pitcher, Tom Gorzelanny, the Nats placed outfielder Rick Ankiel on the 15-day disabled list with a strained intercostal muscle. |
| » Washington outfielder Roger Bernadina will benefit the most from Ankiel’s absence. He has now homered in three of the last four games. |
| » Attendance on Sunday for the final game of the Battle of the Beltways in 2011 was 35,439. The three-game total was 107,615 fans. |
| » Nats second baseman Danny Espinosa hit his 13th home run with a blast from the left side of the plate in the ninth inning. He also doubled (12) and now has 43 RBI. |
| » Think this game isn’t tough? Catcher Wilson Ramos took a foul tip off the inside of his left wrist and lay on the ground in pain for at least a minute. Afterwards he was seen with a huge ice wrap around his hand. Jayson Werth, too, did his postgame interviews with a bag of ice on his left knee. That’s been a common site in recent weeks. |
“We’ve been playing good ball and dropped a game today,” outfielder Jayson Werth said. “But we won the series and have had a good [5-1] homestand. Now we have a day off to rejuvenate a little bit [before playing Seattle] and then back on the horse Tuesday. Not going to win every day that’s for sure.”
Werth didn’t agree that defensive miscues were the difference in the game. But they sure didn’t help. Washington third baseman Ryan Zimmerman had a tough start on the bases and in the field. He tried to stretch a single in the bottom of the first into a double and was thrown out by Orioles center fielder Adam Jones. Then in the top of the second a double-play ball was hit right at third base to Zimmerman, who fired the ball into right field for an error. Baltimore scored a run when Craig Tatum grounded into a double play.
Hardy added to the Orioles lead with a solo home run off Nats starting pitcher Tom Gorzelanny (4.53 ERA) in the top of the third. Then the Nats fell apart in a way we haven’t seen from them during the winning streak. Werth overran a ball in right-center, allowing Nick Markakis to advance to second on a single. A wild pitch by Gorzelanny put runners at first and third against the red-hot Derrek Lee, who entered the at-bat with eight hits in his 10 at-bats during the series. But Gorzelanny induced a fine 4-6-3 double play turned by Espinosa and shortstop Alex Cora to again limit the damage.
But there was more trouble in the fourth for Gorzelanny. A double by Mark Reynolds was followed by a Tatum single to make it 3-0. Washington answered with two runs in the bottom of the fourth to trim the deficit to 3-2. But the Nats gave those runs right back in the fifth. Jones drove in Hardy with a single and Lee scored Jones from second with a double to put the Orioles back up by 5-2.
That was it for Gorzelanny, who departed after 4 2/3 innings in his first start since May 23 thanks to left elbow pain. He went on the 15-day disabled list May 27 and eventually made one rehab start with Triple-A Syracuse last Monday. After five strong starts before his injury, Gorzelanny has now allowed 17 earned runs in his last four starts dating to May 13.
“I felt good today, healthy, strong and with a lot of energy,” Gorzelanny said. “I was just leaving balls up. I went back and looked at everything [on video] and saw that every ball they hit was about waist high. Can’t be successful throwing pitches like that.”
Bernadina – now the primary center fielder again with outfielder Rick Ankiel on the 15-day disabled list as of Sunday morning – homered for the third time in four games to trim the deficit to 5-3. But once again the Orioles answered in the top of the sixth. Reynolds waited until the 12th pitched he faced to smack his 13th homer of the season off reliever Todd Coffey to go back up by three runs.
Still a promising sign for Bernadina, who needs to take advantage of Ankiel’s absence. So far during this homestand he has started five of six games and batted 11-for-24 (.458 batting average) with three home runs, six RBI, a stolen base and four runs scored. He hit in the No. 2 spot in the order three times and at No. 9 twice. He also came off the bench in the second inning of last Tuesday’s come-from-behind win over St. Louis when Ankiel was injured on a play in the field in the second inning.
“You always need a guy like Rick in the lineup. But, yeah, for now it’s an opportunity to play a little bit more,” Bernadina said. “But with Rick, too, we make each other better. For now I get more [at-bats] and take it day-to-day to see what happens from there.”
