Heavy work for Nats bullpen leaves concern

FLUSHING, N.Y. - After displaying improved control and command over the past month, Gio Gonzalez labored through his abbreviated start last night. Gonzalez walked four and let his pitch count balloon up to 105 pitches, forcing Nationals manager Matt Williams to yank the left-hander with two men on and two outs in the fifth.

"I just put my team in a tough situation," Gonzalez said. "I gotta go deeper in the game. I kept falling behind on every hitter. No excuses. I should've done a better job on the mound."

Tanner Roark followed Gonzalez to the mound and quickly coaxed Juan Uribe into a weak grounder to thwart the threat. The right-hander's stout pitching continued through perfect innings in the sixth and seventh with four strikeouts. In fact, Roark was the first of three relievers Williams leaned on to throw multiple frames in the 12-inning ballgame.

Right-hander Aaron Barrett followed Roark to the mound with two shutout innings and left-hander Felipe Rivero blanked the Mets in the 10th and 11th before surrendering the walk-off bomb to Wilmer Flores to start the 12th.

"Unbelievable. ... Phenomenal. I think we have one of the best bullpens in the game," Gonzalez said. "Especially what Tanner Roark did and Aaron Barrett and even Felipe. One pitch. But before that, all of them were lights out. Incredible to watch. They picked me up."

"Yeoman's work because were short," Williams said, acknowledging that some of his relievers were unavailable last night.

When asked to identify which arms weren't capable of pitching, Williams declined to reveal.

"We'll just say, yeah," he said. "I think it's pretty obvious."

Drew Storen had pitched the previous two games and Casey Janssen threw one inning on Wednesday. But, that was Janssen's lone outing since Sunday. Williams did have Jonathan Papelbon warming in the eighth after the Nationals tied it and left-hander Matt Thornton was getting loose in the 12th.

Williams indicated after the 2-1 loss that the potential is there for the Nats to make a move today to add some support to the tired bullpen.

Bryce Harper's 11th inning ejection forced Williams to make several defensive adjustments. With Jayson Werth taking over in right, Williams moved Ryan Zimmerman to left and sent Dan Uggla out to first base. It was the first time Uggla had ever played any position other than second base in his 10-year career in the majors.

"It's part of it," said Uggla, who used Tyler Moore's glove. "I can pretty much play anywhere. So wherever they need me to go, that's where I'm gonna go."

A near-capacity crowd of 36,164 at Citi Field provided an electric atmosphere for the tightly contested game as the Mets pulled to within two games of the Nationals' hold on first place in the National League East.

"They've got a great team over there," Uggla said. "We got a battle right here for first place. We still got a long ways to go but it's definitely awesome, and they had a crowd and they were into it and made the game a lot of fun."

Ian Desmond wasn't as impressed.

"This is no knock on Mets fans, but at home that's a soldout crowd going crazy," he said. "They weren't quite sold out here tonight."