Little goes according to script in Nats' 7-3 loss (updated)

Stephen Strasburg was serving up home runs with alarming regularity. The Giants, owners of the least productive lineup in the National League, were piling up runs. Davey Martinez was getting fired up and getting ejected. And Trevor Rosenthal was throwing strikes and retiring batters.

No, very little went according to script tonight during the Nationals' 7-3 loss to the Giants.

Was this just one of those nights when nothing makes sense? Or was any of this evidence of anything still to come? Check back in the days to come.

Whatever the case, the opener of this week's three-game series didn't go well for the Nationals, who after dropping two of three to the Pirates over the weekend have now fallen below the .500 mark at 7-8 and will need to bounce back to win the next two if they want to take this series from a rebuilding San Francisco club.

"It's important to just kind of stay focused," Strasburg said. "Focus on the things that you're working on. Focus on the process. Because it's - I don't even know what day it is, April 16? - because there's a lot of season left, and a lot of things can change very fast."

The Strasburg matchup against this Giants lineup, which entered with the league's lowest OPS and fewest home run total, seemed a favorable one. And for four innings, it was, with Strasburg retiring 12 of 14 batters and maintaining a reasonable pitch count.

But then came the top of the fifth and a few too many fastballs over the plate. Evan Longoria got things started with an opposite-field homer off a two-seamer to open the inning. Four batters later, Steven Duggar also went the other way with a two-seamer, driving it into the left field bullpen for a two-run homer that extended the Giants' lead to 3-1.

And when Brandon Belt ambushed Strasburg's first-pitch fastball in the sixth and sent it soaring to right, the Giants had increased their season home run total from 10 to 13 and Strasburg had surrendered three homers in a start for only the third time in his career.

"When things aren't going well, it comes down to, like, a couple pitches, and that's what happened tonight," the right-hander said. "So just got to focus on all the good ones that I made. I felt for the most part everything was working. So just going to keep grinding."

It wouldn't have been as big a deal had the Nationals lineup been able to inflict some damage against Dereck Rodríguez, but they managed only one early run off the young right-hander, son of Hall of Famer (and briefly Nats catcher) Iván Rodríguez. And that came via Strasburg's RBI double.

The Nationals managed nothing else during Rodríguez's five innings, except for a lot of side glances at plate umpire Tony Randazzo, whose inconsistent strike zone helped contribute to four called strikeouts. Things reached a boiling point at the end of the fifth, when following back-to-back strikeouts of Brian Dozier and Anthony Rendon, Martinez started barking from the home dugout.

Randazzo stuck his hand out, telling Martinez enough was enough. Martinez didn't care. He kept arguing from the dugout and then moved the discussion to the field after Randazzo gave him the heave-ho.

It was Martinez's second career ejection as a manager, the prior one coming April 7, 2018 only a week into his rookie season. Must be something about the April pollen that gets him riled up.

"I didn't cuss," Martinez said. "I didn't say much other than: 'Let's go!' And what really irritated me was him putting his hand up in my face, pretty much. I can tolerate a lot of things. Don't do that. I have a lot of respect for umpires; everybody knows that. I typically don't complain too much about them. But him walking towards our dugout when I'm in the dugout, I hope the league looks at that. Because like I said, I didn't say much to really get tossed. But he felt like I said enough."

As the Giants expanded their lead, fill-in skipper Chip Hale decided to give Rosenthal a shot on the mound, the first appearance in six days for the oft-lost reliever. Rosenthal opened his outing with a concerning sequence - he plunked Belt, then walked Brandon Crawford on five pitches - but rebounded nicely. Though he did surrender a softly hit RBI single to Kevin Pillar, he retired three batters and struck out both Longoria and Gerardo Parra.

Rosenthal's ERA remains an unsightly 40.50, but he threw 16 of 27 pitches for strikes and seems to have made legitimate progress in his last two appearances.

"I felt a lot more normal today, as far as my emotions and my nerves," the reliever said. "Everything feels back to what I remember. I'm happy the way I'm feeling. I think there's good things to come."