Mistakes aplenty in Nats' 11-8 loss to Cards (updated)

In this summer of extremes for the Nationals, tonight's 11-8 loss to the Cardinals somehow felt appropriate.

The Nats pitching staff posted zeros in six different innings during this game, often in impressive fashion. The lineup posted a four-spot in the bottom of the fifth with an impressive rally, then scored three times in the bottom of the ninth and brought the tying run to the plate.

Unfortunately, the top of the second, sixth and ninth also counted in this contest, so the 11 combined runs St. Louis scored in those frames alone were enough to wipe out all the positives that took place for the home team during an often-interminable game that lasted 4 hours, 10 minutes (the second-longest nine-inning game in Nationals regular season history).

Those three big innings for the Cardinals were not pretty from the Nationals' standpoint. The first four runs came off Erick Fedde, who wasn't helped by his defense. The second three runs came off Austen Williams, who didn't give his defense a chance while serving up three home runs. And the final four runs all came via one swing from Yadier Molina off Sammy Solís in a painful top of the ninth played in front of a sparse crowd that mostly consisted of Cardinals fans at that point.

This is how it's been all summer for a Nats club that in spite of its talent and pluck simply can't consistently do enough good things in moments of importance to emerge victorious.

"They have to start pitching, keep us in the games," a visibly agitated manager Davey Martinez said. "I told them all: With our offense, we're gonna score points. Every inning you guys come in is a closer inning. You've gotta go in there like you're going to close the game out. That's how important these innings are."

Fedde was a bit of an afterthought by the time this game ended, but the right-hander's return from a two-month stint on the DL with a shoulder injury wasn't insignificant. He went five innings, and four of those innings were impressive; he retired 12 of 13 Cardinals batters.

But then there was the top of the second, a mess of an inning that left a big blemish on Fedde's final pitching line. He surrendered four runs, one of those coming on Marcell Ozuna's leadoff homer, the other three all scoring on Matt Carpenter's bases-loaded single to right. (Adam Eaton's bobble in right field and subsequent throw to second base instead of the plate allowed Harrison Bader to score all the way from first.)

The difference between that one bad inning and the four good innings? Martinez felt Fedde didn't trust his fastball enough in the top of the second.

"At one point, he had 50-some pitches, and he threw 29 curveballs and sliders," the manager said. "He came in between innings and I said: 'You have to throw your fastball. You have to establish your fastball. You can't keep throwing your sliders and falling behind.' He went back out there. The next inning, I think he threw nine or 11 pitches, all fastballs."

"I think just that second inning got away from me a little bit," Fedde said. "I started getting a little slider-happy with some of the guys that came up, and I think I just let it take over. Just that little reminder as I was running out of the dugout for the third: Stick with that fastball. I have a lot of faith in it, too. It was a good nudge, because the next couple of innings went pretty smoothly."

The Nationals didn't score in their first four innings at the plate, partly because Trea Turner wasn't awarded a base he thought was his. Running from first on a 3-2 pitch to Bryce Harper in the bottom of the first, Turner beat the throw to second, which didn't even matter because Harper had drawn a walk. But because his foot came off the bag while he was being tagged, Turner ultimately was ruled out on a replay review, a call that while correct has rarely been seen over the years.

So the Nationals found themselves trailing 4-0 in the bottom of the fifth. At which point they finally converted, with Turner and Harper both playing key roles.

Turner drove in the Nats' first run of the game when he battled through a nine-pitch at-bat to draw a bases-loaded walk. Moments later, Harper thought he cleared the bases with a double to deep left-center. Turns out, though, his hit bounced barely over the fence, so Turner (who had already raced around the bases and returned to the dugout) was sent back to third.

No worries, because after an intentional walk of Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto drew another bases-loaded walk to bring home the tying run and make a new game of this.

Except the top of the sixth flipped the game right back to the Cardinals, in excruciating fashion. Williams, who impressed in his major league debut Sunday, suffered through a nightmare of an inning.

Ozuna greeted the rookie right-hander with a home run to center. Paul DeJong followed with his own home run to right-center off an 0-2 pitch. Two batters after that, Patrick Wisdom took him deep to left field.

Yes, three home runs in a span of four batters by Williams, who in 68 minor league innings this season did not allow one.

"I think there's just things that I might be able to do in the minor leagues that I can't here," the reliever said. "I think mixing your pitches is so much more important. And I think that's one thing I'll take: I need to trust my breaking ball more and just try to be better with two strikes if I want to throw a fastball."

By the time Martinez finally walked to the mound to take the ball from Williams, four batters following the third homer, many in the crowd of 21,637 were booing.

Wilmer Difo would get them back into a good mood when he led off the bottom of the sixth with a home run (surprisingly, his fourth since he became the everyday second baseman with Daniel Murphy's trade 16 days ago). But the Nationals went down quietly after that, then watched as Solís served up Molina's late grand slam on an 0-2 pitch before scoring three runs in the bottom of the ninth once it was too late because of the earlier mistakes by members of a pitching staff that aren't making the most of their opportunities.

"They gotta realize, if they wanna pitch here, they gotta get outs," Martinez said. "These are the things we have to see. I can't keep using the same guys every single day. These guys have to pitch."