Herz, Nats blown out in one final loss to Mets (updated)

NEW YORK – If the Mets make the postseason – and it’s increasingly looking like they will – the Nationals will have played a significant supporting role in making it happen.

Teams may not play as many intradivision games as they used to, but they still face each other 13 times a year. And the outcomes of those games can go a long way toward determining a pennant race.

They certainly have in the case of the National League Wild Card race between the Mets and Braves. Because the Nats’ head-to-head results against those two combatants turned out to be wildly different.

Tonight’s 10-0 shellacking at Citi Field completed a season-long thumping at the hands of the Mets. The Nationals finished a dismal 2-11 against them, including 0-6 on the road. Compare that with their impressive 8-5 mark against Atlanta, and you quickly understand how New York has opened up a two-game lead for that final postseason berth with 10 games to go.

"We talk all the time about playing in our division," manager Davey Martinez said. "We've played some teams really well in our division. Some teams, we haven't. The teams that we don't play good against, we have to get better against them."

The Nats played the Mets tough at times, with three of their losses coming in extra innings, including Monday night’s series opener here. Then came the final two games, which were as lopsided as they get. Tuesday’s 10-1 loss was tough to watch. This one somehow was tougher.

That’s probably because the entire contest was decided during a single 10-batter stretch in the bottom of the fourth, when New York scored nine runs while making only one out, knocking DJ Herz from the game and putting a major dent into the rookie’s promising September.

"He's been pretty good, so we're not going to beat him up too much," Martinez said. "But we want him to learn from his mistakes, so his next outing he learns when something does go awry, he knows how to slow things down and get to the next pitch."

Herz had looked sharp through his first three innings, allowing one hit and one walk while striking out four, including all three batters he faced in the third. When he took the mound for the bottom of the fourth, his ERA across 83 1/3 big league innings was an eye-catching 3.56.

By the time the inning ended, with Herz watching from the bench as Jacob Barnes poured even more gasoline on the fire, his ERA had skyrocketed to 4.30.

"I'm going to try to finish strong, the best I can," said Herz, who is scheduled to make one more start (Wednesday against the Royals). "It all starts with just getting ahead, attacking the zone and being relentless. And everything will play out how it's supposed to."

Over his 18 starts since his promotion from Triple-A Rochester in June, Herz has shown an ability to overwhelm an opposing lineup with a lethal combination of high fastballs and low changeups. He’s also shown a proclivity to experience the occasional blowup when things are just a bit off.

Such was the case during the nightmare bottom of the fourth tonight. It began, appropriately, with a leadoff walk. It then included a single, an RBI double and a two-run single before Herz recorded his first out of the inning. He didn’t record another one. The Mets’ final three batters against him walked, singled home a run and singled again.

"I think I was attacking the zone (in the first three innings). I was getting ahead," Herz said. "That fourth inning, they did a really good job with two-strike hitting. They got me."

Martinez walked to the mound and took the ball from his rookie starter, who had thrown 35 pitches that inning alone, then gave it to Barnes with the task of stranding the bases loaded with only one out on the board. Barnes allowed all three inherited runners to score, plus two of his own, thanks to Starling Marte’s bases-loaded single and Brandon Nimmo’s towering, three-run homer to right-center that completed the nine-run barrage.

"It felt like everything started speeding up on him," Martinez said of Herz. "I saw him getting a little frustrated, so we got him out of there. His pitch count got up there, too. He just couldn't finish hitters off."

Not that it was likely to matter given the overwhelming deficit, but the Nationals did nothing at the plate to even try to make a game of this. After they were held to one run a piece Monday and Tuesday nights, they were shut down by a familiar foe in Jose Quintana.

The New York lefty entered this game having spun 14 scoreless innings in two previous starts against the Nats this season. He extended that streak of zeroes to 21 tonight (most by any opposing pitcher in club history), allowing only one runner to even reach scoring position: Dylan Crews, who stole second and third bases in the top of the first but was stranded there when Juan Yepez grounded out to end the inning.

"We were late on his fastballs," Martinez said. "I don't know if it's the movement, or we're looking for something else. We just didn't hit the fastball."

The at-bats got progressively quicker and less productive as the night wore on. Quintana allowed one more hit (a CJ Abrams single in the third). He allowed one more baserunner after that (a Drew Millas walk in the fifth).

All of which left the Citi Field crowd with ample time to cheer, scoreboard-watch and think ahead to an October that is starting to come within close reach, thanks very much to the team they beat 11 times in 13 games this season.

"The biggest thing we can learn from it is we have to go out there and play ball the right way, the correct way," infielder Ildemaro Vargas said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "Go out there and win from the get-go. I think at this level, that's the biggest thing: Be able to go out there, compete and win these games. I know there's a lot of talent here, and I think we'll definitely improve. I think it's something for next season we're going to definitely get better at and learn from these experiences."