Nationals rally again, but lose again to Cardinals (updated)

It is becoming something of a running joke, that no matter how bad they play, no matter the deficit they face, the Nationals always seem to find a way to bring the tying run to the plate late in ballgames. Even though that doesn't always result in victory, it has legitimately become a defining quality of a team that certainly has been a major disappointment this season but rarely has rolled over and conceded defeat.

So it shouldn't have surprised anyone when it happened again tonight, when the Nationals overcame a six-run deficit and not only brought the tying run to the plate in the bottom of the seventh, eighth and ninth, but also brought the go-ahead run up to bat in each case.

No, it still didn't result in a curly W - they stranded two men in the ninth - but at least it made tonight's 7-6 loss to the Cardinals a bit more heartening for the crowd of 22,124 that endured through another long game on South Capitol Street.

"It's good for us to fight," Ryan Zimmerman said. "I mean, I think it shows the character of the guys here. It would be real easy to roll over and quit when you're down what we're down a lot of the time, 7-2, 6-1, things like that. But, I mean, I think we play all nine innings. We're going to give professional at-bats until the last out's made. But as far as taking positives from it, it's still a loss."

In the end, the Nationals were unable to make up the 6-0 deficit created by Tanner Roark, some bad defense and two big blasts by old friend Matt Adams.

Roark had barely taken the mound before he found himself in trouble, allowing back-to-back singles to Matt Carpenter and José Martínez to open the game. That brought Adams to the plate, stuck in a 3-for-44 slump that included zero extra-base hits. Until "Big City" got a chance to face the team that traded him to St. Louis two weeks ago in one of several veteran dumps by a front office that conceded the season.

So what did Adams do? He pounced on a first-pitch curveball from Roark, launching the ball to right field to give the Cardinals a 3-0 lead and demoralize the building.

"He's a good hitter, but we got the ball up," manager Davey Martinez said. "We threw a couple: one breaking ball that was up and a changeup that was up. Can't make those mistakes to guys that can hit the ball out the ballpark."

The vibe only deteriorated during a two-run top of the second in which Anthony Rendon misplayed a chopper to third and Bryce Harper lost a deep fly ball to center in the dusk, turning it into an RBI double. Down 5-0, with their starter's pitch count already a whopping 56, the Nationals looked dead in the water.

And when Adams sent a first-pitch changeup from Roark in the top of the fifth soaring into the second deck down the right field line for his second homer of the evening, the score was 6-0 and there was little reason to believe the track of this game was going to be reversed.

"Like I've said a million times, if you don't make your pitch, they hit it far," Roark said. "He did it twice. If I had a hat on, I'd tip it to him."

Then again, this is the summer of the battling Nationals, a team that while losing more close games than it should still always seems to find a way to make it close no matter the early deficit.

Sure enough, they did it again. Adam Eaton's RBI double in the fifth finally got the Nats on the board (though only after plate umpire CB Bucknor's original call that Victor Robles was out at the plate was reversed). And though rookie Kyle McGowin, making his major league debut, served up a solo homer to Yairo Muñoz in the top of the sixth, his teammates picked him up in the bottom of the inning when Wilmer Difo doubled home Zimmerman from first.

Even so, the Nationals still trailed 7-2 heading to the bottom of the seventh, still facing a steep climb to get back in the game. And after Miles Mikolas retired the first two batters of the inning, the Cardinals starter was in good shape to wrap up his outing on a high note.

But then the Nats began to chip away. Harper singled to left. Rendon doubled to left, knocking Mikolas from the game. Reliever Dakota Hudson entered and immediately walked Juan Soto to load the bases for Zimmerman, who over the last three seasons was 3-for-35 in such situations but made up for a lot of that with one swing. Zimmerman's drive to the wall in center cleared the bases and brought the crowd back to life.

And when Zimmerman came around to score (barely, as another replay review confirmed) on Difo's single to center, the Nationals had both completed a four-run rally with two outs and officially followed their usual script by bringing the tying run to the plate.

"After five runs in two innings, they could have folded," Martinez said. "But they don't."

Alas, the ability not to fold when down a bunch of runs, though admirable, doesn't close the gap on a division race that has been stuck in neutral for weeks.