Losing streak reaches five as Giants double up Nats 12-6

It's hard to win ballgames when your starting pitchers can't make it past the third inning. Friday night, Max Scherzer was knocked out after five early runs, and on Saturday, the Giants sent Gio Gonzalez to the showers, plating six in the third as the Nationals dropped their fifth straight game, 12-6.

The Nationals presented Gonzalez with an early two-run lead on Yunel Escobar's RBI double in the first and Ian Desmond's colossal solo homer in the second.

But Gonzalez gave it away quickly in the third. After retiring the Giants' first six hitters, Gonzalez surrendered a leadoff triple to rookie Kelby Tomlinson. Battling command issues, Gonzalez then issued consecutive walks to Hector Sanchez and Jake Peavy, the Giant's eight and nine hitters.

Nationals pitching coach Steve McCatty headed to the mound to calm down Gonzalez. As he walked back to dugout, McCatty exchanged words with home plate umpire Cory Blaser. Blaser didn't like he what he heard and ejected McCatty.

It wasn't long before Gonzalez was following his pitching coach back to the Nationals clubhouse. Gregor Blanco started the relentless attack with an RBI single. Then, Matt Duffy cleared the bases with a three-run double.

Brandon Belt became the sixth straight Giants hitter to reach base when he delivered an RBI single. After Gonzalez finally record two outs, he faced his last hitter when Brandon Crawford brought Belt home on a base knock to center.

"(Gonzalez) lost command of the strike zone," Nationals manager Matt Williams told reporters. "They hit some balls really hard. He just couldn't get out of it so we had to go to the bullpen again. We would have liked to get him through that one and one more, of course, but at that point he had already been 30-plus pitches in the inning, so we wanted to get him out of there."

Right-hander Tanner Roark followed Gonzalez to the mound and was torched for three more runs in the fifth off doubles from Buster Posey and Tomlinson.

Left-hander Felipe Rivero was tagged for a run on another double from Belt in the sixth. Then, Drew Storen allowed two more runs on three hits in the eighth. Storen has now given up runs in each of his last four appearances (10 runs overall).

The Nationals showed fight, scoring three times in the fifth on a two-run double from Jose Lobaton and an RBI triple from Michael A. Taylor. Danny Espinosa added his first pinch-hitter homer in the ninth.

To make matters worse, Bryce Harper left the game shortly after fouling a ball off his left leg in the seventh. Harper finished his at-bat, lining out to center before heading to the Nationals clubhouse.

The Nationals' five-game slide drops them to 58-58 overall. It's the first time they have fallen back to .500 since May 8. They are now 1-5 on this current road trip and remain 4 1/2 games behind the first place Mets in the National League East.

After the difficult loss, reporters questioned Williams on whether the Nationals had reached "rock bottom."

"That's a difficult question to answer," Williams said to reporters. "It's a loss. We have a lot to play. Rock bottom? ... We're still on this hunt here. So no. We can play better, of course. To ask it that way and to answer it that way would not be fair to the guys in that room. What we must do is get ready for (Sunday) and see if we can beat them and get on (a roll) the rest of the way."