Can Gray get back on track by trusting his fastball again?

Ask Davey Martinez to evaluate Josiah Gray’s recent struggles, and the Nationals manager doesn’t have to think for long before answering.

“The command of the fastball just hasn’t been there,” Martinez said following Tuesday night’s 5-4 loss to the Red Sox. “And he’s trying to rely on too many secondary pitches.”

If you want to boil Gray’s troubles down to a single diagnosis, that might well be it. He knows his fastball has been his least effective pitch since he reached the big leagues two years ago. But his occasional abandonment of it altogether only seems to lead to more trouble.

“We’ve got to get him to understand that the use of his fastball has got to be better,” Martinez said. “He’s really good when he throws his fastball down for strikes; it’s got some run to it. And then he can go to his secondary pitches. But his pitch count is getting way up there.”

Gray’s pitch count was astronomical Tuesday night. He needed 31 just to face five batters in the top of the first. He finished with a whopping 83 across only three-plus innings, averaging more than five thrown per batter faced.

The most alarming part of that, though, might be this head-scratcher: Only 29 of those 86 were fastballs, only 11 of those four-seamers, the other 18 coming on sinkers.

It’s not the first time Gray has abandoned his fastball during the course of a start, turning all of his attention instead to his breaking balls (slider, curveball, cutter, sweeper). But this one seemed more pronounced than in the past, maybe because the results were so frustrating.

“He’s just relying on too many secondary pitches,” Martinez said. “He’s got to get into attack mode again.”

Perhaps no sequence underscored this more than the one that played out in the top of the third. With two outs and a runner on second, Gray was in an advantageous spot to get out of the inning with his team trailing only 1-0 and his pitch count still in reasonable shape.

But he proceeded to go to a full count to the next three batters he faced and didn’t retire any of them. He walked Rafael Devers during a six-pitch plate appearance that included only cutters and changeups. He walked Trevor Story during a six-pitch plate appearance that included four curveballs, one sweeper and one sinker. And then he gave up a two-run single to Triston Casas during a six-pitch at-bat that included three cutters, two curveballs and one four-seam fastball. Each of the 3-2 pitches was a breaking ball.

“I feel like they were doing a really good job taking good at-bats and seeing the breaking ball low and not chasing the breaking ball,” catcher Keibert Ruiz said. “We have to do a better job attacking them a little bit more with the fastball, but we just got to learn from that and keep going.”

Gray, for his part, understands the need not to give up on his fastball. He just isn’t always able to trust it when the time comes to throw a crucial pitch.

“I think it’s kind of the essence of the game: You have to establish the fastball,” he said. “Even looking back at that third inning, that long inning, if I throw Trevor Story another fastball, maybe it’s a different story. Just like Devers, or anybody else. It’s not an easy way to live, trying to think about: ‘I could’ve thrown this pitch, or I could’ve thrown that pitch.’ But it’s part of the game. You’ve got to establish your fastball. And I think I did a decent job of that today, but I could’ve done more. And I kind of bore the results of that.”

Gray, who not long ago owned a sub-3.00 ERA in earning the first All-Star selection of his career, has since seen that ERA jump to 3.96 as he endures through his first prolonged slump of the season.

His next start is scheduled for next week at Yankee Stadium. It’s suddenly a big one for the young right-hander, who doesn’t want to see such a promising season get derailed at this late stage.

One of the most studious pitchers in the sport, certainly on the Nationals’ current staff, Gray surely will spend the next five days analyzing his latest performance. In the end, might he be hurt by overthinking things at times?

“Oh, he thinks,” Martinez said with a laugh. “Sometimes he’s just got to go out there, put everything aside and just attack the hitters in the zone. His stuff is good. His stuff is really good. You don’t get to this point, especially this year being an All-Star and everything, not having good stuff. The command right now is a little bit of an issue. I know that he can turn that around, but he’s got to trust his fastball, start using it more and throw it over the plate.”