Faith in bullpen goes haywire during gut-punch loss (updated)

Asked Friday if Sean Doolittle's struggles might force him to shift the veteran late-inning reliever into a lower-leverage role, Davey Martinez was adamant in showing faith in the left-hander who has been an integral member of the Nationals bullpen for three years now.

"In order for us to pull this off," Martinez said, "we need Sean Doolittle."

Barely 24 hours later, the Nationals manager admitted he may have no choice but to start devising a plan for success in 2020 that doesn't include Doolittle in a prominent role.

The final nail in the coffin may have come in the top of the eighth inning of what devolved into a bang-your-head-on-the-table, 5-3 loss to the Orioles tonight on South Capitol Street. Entrusted with a three-run lead against the lower half of Baltimore's lineup, Doolittle immediately put his team and his manager in an untenable situation.

Home runs by Pat Valaika and Pedro Severino on back-to-back pitches - the former on a changeup at the knees, the latter on an 89-mph fastball at the letters - opened the inning in jaw-dropping fashion and left everyone in the park acknowledging the gravity of this development.

"Mechanically, I might not be exactly where I want to be," Doolittle said. "But I feel physically like the ball should be coming out a lot harder than 89-90. It should have some life on it. I should be able to get through an inning. It just hasn't come together."

Major League Baseball's new three-batter-minimum rule forced Doolittle to remain in the game, and though he was able to strike out the .129-hitting Chris Davis, he left Martinez in the dangerous position of now asking Daniel Hudson to record a five-out save.

"It's really, really frustrating," Doolittle said. "And I feel terrible. I'm letting the team down. I put Huddy in a really, really tough spot tonight."

Hudson didn't have it in him. He didn't even reach the ninth inning, instead blowing the save in the eighth after a walk, a single and a back-breaking, three-run homer to Anthony Santander that elicited a roar from the visitors' dugout and groans from the few others who witnessed it inside the ballpark.

"It's difficult," Hudson said. "I know Sean probably feels the same. But I definitely feel like we spoiled a pretty good outing from (starter Austin Voth) there. ... I feel like I kind of let those guys down."

It was a gut-punch sequence for the Nationals, who thought they built the back end of their 2020 bullpen to be a formidable three-headed monster, with former Astros set up man Will Harris joining the two returning veterans. Now, Harris is out with a groin injury, Doolittle has an 18.00 ERA and looks lost and Hudson must bounce back from his worst blown save since he joined the club last summer.

"It's tough," admitted Martinez, whose club is 4-7 and must win Sunday to avoid an unthinkable sweep at the hands of the rebuilding Orioles. "You have these guys you come into the season knowing they are going to pitch the back end of the bullpen. One guy is hurt, the other guy is struggling right now. You've got one guy you count on. ... But these were the guys coming into the season: Doolittle, Hudson and Harris. Those were your three guys."

All of this came at the end of what had been the Nats' best all-around game since early in the week, on a night when Voth dominated for five innings and the lineup strung together a much-needed rally to take an early lead.

Whenever his team is in an offensive funk, Martinez loves to go back to a simple-yet-effective message for his hitters: Just try to hit the ball back up the middle. That's especially true when facing a finesse pitcher, like the Orioles' Tommy Milone, who carved up the Nationals on Friday with six innings of three-hit ball.

And with another starter on the mound tonight in Thomas Eshelman who doesn't exactly overpower hitters - his average fastball velocity is 86.7 mph - Martinez made a point to convey his message again. This time, they listened.

The first six Nationals who put the ball in play tonight each hit the ball either up the middle or to the opposite field. And the guy who broke that streak, Kurt Suzuki (a dead-pull hitter if ever there was one) still managed to drive in a run via a sacrifice fly to left. Martinez may very well have been shedding tears of joy in the dugout at the end of that sequence.

"There's a lot of hits out in the middle of the field," the manager said. "And when we start struggling, the key for us is to start staying in the middle of the field. Once we do that, a lot things start opening up."

Equally pleased was Juan Soto, who in his third game of this season notched his first home run of 2020. His 370-foot deep fly to left struck a railing just beyond the fence and caromed back onto the field as he circled the bases for the first time since Game 6 of the World Series.

Handed an early 2-0 lead, Voth set out to make it hold up against an Orioles lineup he had his way with last summer. And the right-hander continued the trend with another superb performance.

With a potent fastball-curveball combo, Voth faced the minimum over his first four innings. The lone Baltimore batter to reach base, Rio Ruiz, did so via a second-inning hot smash to first that Eric Thames couldn't handle and was scored a single. No matter, because Ruiz was later called out when a replay review showed his feet weren't in contact with second base for a split-second on a stolen base attempt initially called safe by umpire Tim Timmons.

Voth did get himself into his first and only jam of the night in the top of the fifth when he walked Ruiz and gave up a line drive single to Renato Núñez. But after a mound visit from pitching coach Paul Menhart, he buckled down and retired the next three batters, two via strikeouts.

It was an important sequence for Voth, who in his one calendar year in the big leagues has shown plenty of promise but still needs to prove he can sustain success deeper into starts. Tonight was a big step in the right direction for the right-hander.

"I think I was able to get out of the inning by taking a deep breath and just focusing on location," he said, "rather than trying to amp up and throw a harder pitch. That kind of helped me."

Voth was pulled after five innings and 73 pitches, though, which meant Martinez would need 12 outs from his bullpen. He got the first six with ease from Javy Guerra and Tanner Rainey, who each retired the side. But then he entrusted a three-run lead - padded by Thames' two-out RBI double - in the eighth to Doolittle, a not-insignificant show of faith in the struggling lefty.

When it was over, it was fair to wonder what now needs to happen before Martinez can trust him again.

"I'm not going to give up on him," the manager said. "We are going to work it out. If I have to pitch him in very low-leverage situations, we will do that. We need him. He's a big part of this team. I'm going to talk to him tonight or tomorrow, and we will figure something out."

Doolittle, who insists he's healthy, is determined to figure this out while staying on the active roster.

"I haven't thought about stepping away or doing anything like that," he said. "I hope it doesn't come to that. My focus is continuing to come to the field every day with a good attitude and a good work ethic, and to continue to try to put this together."