Nats defense crumbles during blowout loss to Cubs (updated)

If managers preach to their teams they can’t give the opposition more than 27 outs, what do they say about giving them 32 outs?

Truth be told, it probably never comes up, because how often does a team make five defensive gaffes in one nine-inning game? At the major league level, nonetheless.

What, then, will Davey Martinez have to say to his players after today’s 14-1 dismantling by the Cubs, one that was defined not by the hits the Nationals gave up or failed to produce themselves but by the five misplays they made in the field during their least aesthetically pleasing game of the season?

"We're going to pound the same message: We've got to catch the baseball," the manager said in one of the more animated postgame sessions of his seven-year tenure here. "It was awful today. I can't say nothing about it. Our defense was not there. I thought (Mitchell Parker) threw the ball really well. We've got to play defense behind him. You can't drive in runs and let in three or four more runs. You've got to catch the baseball. Defense is a big part of the game. I say that all the time. We've got to catch the ball."

Martinez has had to confront these questions before, but usually as it pertains to one or maybe two plays during the course of a game. Five? This was unprecedented, leaving him to answer how he planned to deliver the aforementioned message to his players.

"Just like that, right? Stern," he said. "Let them know: If you don't want to play defense, we might have to do something else. But it's going to be stern."

Officially, only three of the five were ruled errors by the official scorer. Nobody who watched today’s game, though, would honestly claim any of the five plays deserved to be called anything but errors, each more cringeworthy than the previous one.

It all made for an especially ugly afternoon at the ballpark, where the Nationals closed out what had been an uplifting homestand with a sweep at the hands of the Cubs.

"I think this is being young," Martinez said of a team that started six rookies today and didn't use a position player over 26. "And like I told you yesterday: The game, all of a sudden, they're trying to do things that you shouldn't be trying. They've got to learn how to be where their feet are at. Just make the plays. We're looking for an out. If you don't get the out at home, just try to get an out. Keep it simple, and let's get to the next batter."

Things seemed to be going swimmingly in the early going. The Nats took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second, though that one run only scored via a Keibert Ruiz double play, which killed a golden opportunity for a big rally that saw them load the bases with nobody out.

Even so, the day began well for Parker, who cruised through two scoreless innings on 27 pitches, striking out three in the top of the first. Then came disaster in the top of the third, an inning marked both by good contact and awful defense.

The Cubs’ three-run rally began with a single by Pete Crow-Armstrong, who then went all the way to third on Parker’s wildly off-target pickoff attempt moments later. It was the fifth error charged to Parker in only 12 official defensive chances this season, the most committed in any single season by any pitcher in Nationals history.

"Overthinking it," the lefty said. "I'm going to have some good conversations and try to figure that out."

Crow-Armstrong would then score on Ian Happ’s RBI single, after which Parker loaded the bases, yet found himself one pitch away from getting out of the inning with only the one run allowed. Until he left a 1-2 splitter up in the zone and watched Isaac Paredes hit it into right field for a two-run single to complete the three-run rally.

As bad as the top of the third was, the top of the fourth was even uglier. It began with another misplay, with CJ Abrams sticking his glove out to try to snag Nico Hoerner’s chopper up the middle and watching it deflect away. Ruled a base hit by the official scorer, Abrams would probably be the first to admit he deserved what would’ve been his sixth error in 18 games on that play.

Seconds later, José Tena came charging in to field Crow-Armstrong’s bunt attempt down the third base line and fired the ball down the right field line. Hoerner scored all the way from first on the error to give the Cubs their fourth run of the afternoon. (Tena would be charged with another error in the fifth when he let a routine grounder go under his glove.)

"It's part of the game. You're going to make errors," Tena said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "Just keep your head held up high and learn from your mistakes. It's baseball. It's going to happen. Errors are going to come. Just keep working and avoid them."

Parker actually finished his outing on a strong note, striking out three of the last four batters he faced. He walked off the mound at the end of the sixth, having thrown 89 pitches, struck out eight with only one walk and technically getting credit for a quality start (three earned runs in six innings).

"It's good to be able to keep us in the game as best as possible," Parker said. "Like we've been trying to do all year, just go deep in the game, as far as we can."

The Cubs, though, put the game away with three more runs in the top of the seventh charged to reliever Jacob Barnes but not entirely his fault. With runners on second and third and the infield playing in, Barnes got Cody Bellinger to hit a chopper to the right side. Like Abrams earlier in the game, Luis García Jr. only stuck his glove out hoping the ball might find it. It did not. Like Abrams, García was not charged with an error, so Barnes could only fume on the mound as two more runs scored to turn this one into a blowout.

"They're very aggressive on the bases, and I was trying to attack the ball, to try to cut off the run at home," García said, via Martinez. "Unfortunately, it didn't go that way. What I would do differently is try to catch it instead of what the result was. But I know they're an aggressive running team, and I was just trying to cut off the run."

And that’s before rookies Zach Brzykcy (making his major league debut) and Orlando Ribalta gave up seven more runs in the top of the ninth, the two relievers combining to allow eight consecutive Chicago batters to reach base with two outs in the inning.

Those who stayed til the end at least got to see Darren Baker single up the middle on the first pitch of his career, earning an ovation from the crowd. But that was small consolation for everything else that take place on this field today by an admittedly young team, though one that knows it can't use that as an excuse.

"Young, old, veteran, mid-level, it doesn't matter," García said. "Every team's going to go through phases and games like this. All we can do is stay positive and go out there and give the best effort we can, and then we'll have better results."