Nationals find new way to lose late, fall to Cards 7-6 (updated)

ST. LOUIS - The 2018 Nationals don't lose baseball games. They lose Greek tragedies.

There's no such thing as a simple ballgame for this team right now. The wins, few and far between as they seem, are still excruciating affairs. The losses? Well, they fall into a category all their own, suitable only to be written about by men named Thespis or Euripides.

And so even when there were glimmers of hope tonight at Busch Stadium, in the form of seventh- and ninth-inning rallies by the visiting club, it did not matter in the end. Because it wasn't a question of if, only when the Nationals' makeshift bullpen would give those runs back and more.

That occurred in the bottom of the eighth, when four Cardinals crossed the plate to turn a two-run lead into a two-run deficit, and then in the bottom of the ninth, when Koda Glover completed the Nationals' latest round of self-immolation by serving up a walk-off homer to Paul DeJong for the final stamp on a 7-6 loss that would have felt crushing if not for the fact it came 24 hours after an even more crushing loss in Chicago.

"It's a good thing knowing we have a chance to win every game," said manager Davey Martinez, who at this point has no choice but to keep falling back on that line of positive reinforcement. "We've done that all year long. We've had a chance to win a lot of games. We just have to finish. We've gotta finish the games."

The Nationals have shown zero ability of late to finish games. They've now lost six times when tied or leading in the seventh inning or later since the All-Star break. They're now 10-21 in one-run games. The first-place Braves are 16-8. The second-place Phillies are 20-11.

Is it any wonder the Nats now are staring at a seven-game deficit in a division that is slipping away before their eyes?

"We didn't finish the game off, and that's what we have to do," catcher Matt Wieters said. "When we get leads we have to keep them, and we have to keep fighting when we don't have leads. We did a good job of coming back and tying the game, but right now it's just about getting wins, whichever shape and form we need to do that."

Up two runs in the bottom of the eighth in St. Louis only 24 hours after blowing a three-run lead with two outs in the ninth in Chicago, the Nationals should have been in an advantageous position to emerge with a much-needed win. But in order to finish off the Cardinals, they were going to need to somehow cobble together six more outs from a bullpen that is in shambles at the moment.

And so it could not have surprised anyone who was watching when Justin Miller and Sammy Solís combined to surrender four runs in that fateful bottom of the eighth and turn a 4-2 lead into a 6-4 deficit, all four of the runs scoring via a pair of home runs.

Jedd Gyorko got it started by taking Miller deep to left-center to begin the inning and trim the deficit to one. Four batters later, Matt Carpenter came up with two men on and - after the runners advanced via a wild pitch after Solís and Wieters got crossed up - crushed a fastball to left-center for the three-run homer that flipped the score into St. Louis' favor.

"We were going to try and throw something that was going to keep the ball in the infield," Wieters said when asked if the gameplan versus Carpenter changed once first base became open. "We went out there, and I think everybody's on the same plan there. I think the same as the hitter before: As opposed to going up and in, we were going down and in and he was able to drive it in the outfield. It's a pitch he likes to hit. So up and in, maybe broken bat. Down and in was something he hit in the air."

Solís has now given up the lead in each of his last two appearances: Friday in Chicago, tonight in St. Louis.

"I'm working out there," the lefty said. "I'm trying to hit spots. Every miss right now is being driven. I've got to keep working, and it's going to roll my way eventually."

Despite the calamitous bottom of the eighth, the Nationals responded by doing something they've rarely done this season: delivered a ninth-inning rally. RBI singles by Daniel Murphy and Wieters off Bud Norris made this a 6-6 game.

"After yesterday, they could have come in here and played flat," Martinez said. "They didn't. They came in, they battled. We fell behind, guess what? We battled again to tie the game. I'm proud."

Martinez, though, would have been prouder had his team been able to push across the go-ahead run at the end of all that. Despite Michael A. Taylor's presence only 90 feet away with one out, he was stranded there after Wilmer Difo chopped a grounder to a drawn-in infield and Adam Eaton struck out.

That set the stage for DeJong, who hammered Glover's 3-1 pitch to left to open the bottom of the ninth and end the misery once and for all.

"He definitely got my ass. It happens," said Glover, the oft-injured reliever who was pitching on back-to-back days for the first time in 2018. "Good thing is, what I'm happy with is I walk off the field healthy. But the bad news is we lost the game. It's difficult, one of them things we're going to have to battle through."

The loss, the sixth by the Nationals in a game they either led or were tied in the seventh inning or later since the All-Star break, leaves this team teetering on the brink. The Braves swept a day-night doubleheader from the Marlins and moved into sole possession of first place in the National League East.

The Nationals? On Sunday night, they were one Ryan Madson strike away from moving to within 4 1/2 games of the division lead. Now, they sit a full seven games back.

Ensconced in a very familiar situation - tied in the seventh inning - the Nationals tried to reverse the script when the most exciting 19-year-old in baseball once again did his thing.

Juan Soto's two-run, opposite-field homer in the top of the seventh - his 15th in 74 big league games - gave the Nats the jolt they needed and gave them a 4-2 lead in a game they already entered in a disadvantageous position.

The challenge facing the Nationals tonight was simple: Try to shrug off their most devastating loss of the season and play another quality ballgame on the road against a perennial contender riding a five-game winning streak. With Tommy Milone on the mound.

Milone, making his fourth start filling in for the injured Stephen Strasburg, found himself in a world of trouble his entire outing. The Cardinals put at least one runner in scoring position in each of the game's first five innings, 12 runners on base in total.

Somehow, though, Milone departed having permitted only two of those runners to cross the plate. He pitched out of a bases-loaded jam in the first. He got an inning-ending double play in the second. He stranded a man on third in the third. And again in the fourth.

By the time Milone loaded the bases with one out in the fifth, Martinez decided he couldn't tempt fate yet again. So he brought in rookie Wander Suero to try to pitch out of the jam, and Suero responded with the perfect result: a ground ball back to the mound for a 1-2-3 double play that kept this game tied at 2.

The Nationals got there by making the most of what few hits they managed off Miles Mikolas. They turned Anthony Rendon's leadoff single, a sacrifice bunt by Soto and Ryan Zimmerman's double off the left field wall into a run in the top of the second.

Bryce Harper then took care of business on his own in the top of the fourth. Battling through a 10-pitch at-bat with Mikolas, the slugger then sent a ball soaring to right-center for his 29th homer of the season, his sixth since the All-Star break.

And so the Nationals entered the seventh inning of an important ballgame tied with the opposition. It was, as everyone knows by now, a familiar position.

Which meant, sadly, a familiar result was only a few minutes away.

"I want those guys in there to know to keep playing the way they're playing," Martinez said. "We're going to get some guys healthy. Things will turn around. Keep playing. The offense is doing really well right now. We're playing good defense. Just keep playing baseball. That's all I ask. This thing will turn around."