Another big inning dooms Irvin, Nats in lopsided loss to Bucs (updated)

PITTSBURGH – The 162-game season is unforgiving. It rewards those who have both the physical and mental fortitude to deal with some adversity along the way and right their ship. It penalizes those who can’t bounce back when things start to go south.

A number of prominent Nationals are experiencing the latter these days, stellar first halves undone by subpar second halves. There are still 21 games left to try to salvage things and end on a positive note. But time is running out for them, and Jake Irvin is very much on that list.

A potential All-Star on Independence Day, the right-hander is now just hoping to get his ERA back under 4.00 by season’s end. His last two starts, each of them undone by one really bad inning, have left him in such an unexpected position.

With six runs allowed overall tonight, five of them in the bottom of the second alone, Irvin turned what the Nationals hoped would be a good series opener against the Pirates into an unsightly, 9-4 loss. Plenty more calamities befell them over the rest of the game, but that ugly second inning loomed largest.

"The big innings stink, and they're going to kill you," Irvin said. "We've lost two games in a row that I've started now because of those innings. We're just trying to do whatever we can to avoid those situations in the future."

As was the case in his previous start, Irvin got early run support. The Nationals put up a three-spot in the top of the first, putting a hurting on Bailey Falter and appearing to set the tone for a big night at the plate.

Dylan Crews led off the game with an infield single, stole second, took third on a long fly out by James Wood, then scored on Juan Yepez’s RBI double. And when Andrés Chaparro blasted a two-run homer to the deepest crevice of PNC Park’s deep left-center field, the Nats looked very much in control.

"As soon as we started off with those three runs in the first, I thought it was going to be a good night for us," Chaparro said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "But that's baseball, and that's how things work. You don't base it off early (runs)." 

Sure enough, then came the bottom of the second, and Irvin’s latest abrupt meltdown. It wasn’t quite as bad as his seven-run top of the second against the Cubs six nights ago, but it wasn’t far off.

A pair of one-out walks put Irvin in trouble, and then he wasn’t able to get himself out of the mess despite getting to two strikes on several batters. Jared Triolo, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Bryan Reynolds and Nick Gonzales all delivered run-scoring singles, the first three of those coming on curveballs. At one point, the Pirates had taken a swing at five curveballs from Irvin, putting all five in play, four of them for hits.

"Execution's been poor, and I think there's counts where hitters are probably able to predict that (pitch) a little better," he said. "And they're taking advantage of it."

Five runs crossed the plate during the 46-pitch frame, in which 10 batters came to the plate, Davey Martinez forced to get his bullpen up and running just in case Irvin couldn’t get the third out before that pitch count really got out of control.

To his credit, Irvin managed to shake off the five-spot and otherwise pitch effectively. He allowed another run in the third via two more hits off his curveball and an errant pickoff throw, but that’s all he allowed before departing at the end of the fifth.

"I think he relies a lot on his secondary pitches, and he gets beat up that way, starts falling behind," Martinez said. "Then he comes back out and retired the next nine batters on really just throwing his fastball, commanding his fastball and keeping the ball down."

It’s impossible to ignore those big, crooked numbers, though, and Irvin has had too many of them in recent outings. He has now allowed 15 runs over his last 15 innings, but 14 of those runs have scored in only three of the innings.

Damage is still damage, and Irvin has endured a good amount of it over the last months. After a brilliant, one-hit July 4 showing against the Mets, his ERA stood at 2.80, his case for a spot in the All-Star Game strong. In 11 starts since, his ERA is 6.90, having turned a once-stellar season into one that still leaves something to be desired.

Irvin has four more scheduled starts to leave a better taste in his mouth when he heads home for the winter.

"That's a big focus," he said. "I'm trying to take this day-to-day, and trying not to be discouraged by any results recently. I think that things could've gone one way or another the last few starts on one or two pitches. So it's eliminating those bad pitches, finding ways to get guys out, get outs early and just get deep into ballgames like we were doing early in the season."

In spite of tonight’s starter’s struggles, the Nationals still had a chance to get back into this game. But they squandered opportunities to add on to the three early runs they scored off Falter, then went silent against the Pittsburgh bullpen until a too-little, too-late rally in the ninth, while also watching their own bullpen implode during a particularly demoralizing bottom of the sixth.

The Pirates scored three runs off Joe La Sorsa and Eduardo Salazar during that frame, and they did so with only one hit (a single). How? Thanks to a sequence that saw La Sorsa intentionally walk Reynolds to load the bases, then get crossed up with Keibert Ruiz for a run-scoring passed ball, then plunk Oneil Cruz on the next pitch. Salazar entered and proceeded to issue back-to-back, bases-loaded walks, the first on four pitches, the second on five.

"They called a slider; he threw a fastball," Martinez said of the run-scoring cross-up between La Sorsa and Ruiz. "It's funny, because we always talk about this for a hitter: When you're looking for a fastball and they throw you a breaking ball, you can adjust. But when you're looking for a breaking ball and you get a fastball, it's tough to adjust. And you saw it tonight with the catcher."