Nats swept by Marlins for second time this year (updated)

The ball made a loud sound off Stone Garrett’s bat, a 105-mph bullet, and headed in the air toward deep left-center. A Father’s Day crowd of 25,339 at Nationals Park that had little reason to get excited most of the afternoon briefly rose with the kind of anticipation you’d expect from such loud contact at a big moment in a ballgame.

And then everyone slinked back into their seats as Jonathan Davis hauled in the ball at the warning track to end the bottom of the sixth, the Nationals still trailing the Marlins by two runs. Garrett, who came about 20 feet shy of giving his team the lead, slammed his helmet in frustration as he arrived at first base.

"I thought it was gone off the bat," teammate Lane Thomas said. "I think he did, too."

"We thought once he hit it," manager Davey Martinez said, "it was going to be a different ballgame."

The feeling of frustration was mutual throughout the ballpark as the Nats slogged their way through yet another loss to the division foe that somehow has become their white whale.

A 4-2 loss completed a three-game weekend sweep and dropped the Nationals to 0-6 this season against the Marlins, who have thrust themselves into the National League wild card picture despite an upside-down run differential. Over the last two seasons, they’re now an unfathomable 4-21 against Miami.

"We don't hit their pitching very well right now," Martinez said. "We chase a lot. We have some opportunities; we can't really capitalize on them. Their starting pitching is pretty good, and they've got all those lefties in the bullpen and can match up well. But right now, we don't hit the ball."

The Nats have been owned by the Marlins, but it’s not like they’re beating anybody else with any regularity these days. They’ve now lost 14 of 18 since a May 27 win in Kansas City got them to 23-29 and offered a glimmer of hope that the worst days of their rebuild were behind them.

It hasn’t felt that way since.

"Obviously, it's frustrating," Thomas said. "I think it's important to try not to think about that stuff and just keep going and see if we can get a few wins the next few days."

Patrick Corbin was by no means good in this start. He faced 31 batters and allowed 11 hits, albeit all singles. He walked two. He uncorked a wild pitch. He put runners in scoring position in five consecutive innings. He ultimately allowed four runs.

Perhaps most striking, though, was the lack of swings and misses off a pitcher who made his living a few years ago that way. Corbin threw 102 pitches this afternoon. The Marlins swung at 47 of them. They missed only five times, only once on his trademark slider.

"You make some good pitches, and they're swinging early," the left-hander said. "You can't do much about some bloopers or some ground balls that get by. One of those days where they're swinging early, and those balls get through, something like that happens."

All that contact, though, has consequences, one of which is the pressure it places on guys in the field to make every play. The Nationals did not make enough of them this afternoon, and in a few cases it came back to haunt them.

With the bases loaded and one out in the second, Corbin got No. 9 hitter Jacob Amaya (making his major league debut) to hit a chopper to third. Michael Chavis (filling in for Jeimer Candelario, who was a late scratch with a bone bruise on his right thumb that will be re-evaluated Monday) charged in and had a decision to make: Throw to the plate to get the lead runner, or attempt a tougher 5-4-3 double play that would’ve ended the inning. He tried for the double play and only got the first out, the Marlins taking a 1-0 lead in the process.

Two innings later, Amaya lined a single to left for his first career hit. Garrett Hampson, who led off the inning with a single of his own, didn’t hesitate to go first-to-third on the play, perhaps catching Garrett off guard. The left fielder tried in vain to throw him out but wound up airmailing the ball over a leaping Chavis, which allowed Amaya to take second as the trailing runner and give the Marlins two runners in scoring position with nobody out. A sacrifice fly and a single to center brought home both runs.

"That's the one that really got me," Martinez said. "Because we haven't been doing that. ... And that comes from just trying to do too much. I think at some point in time, these guys really want to try to win a game, and they're trying to overthink, overdo something. In that situation, just throw it through your cutoff man, keep the double play in order."

That sequence came moments after the Nationals tied the game in the bottom of the third, thanks to the latest quality at-bat from Victor Robles and the latest big blast from Thomas.

Robles, in his third game back from a lengthy stint on the injured list, fouled off four consecutive 2-2 pitches from Jesús Luzardo, then ripped the ninth pitch of the at-bat to left for a single. It was emblematic of the kind of improved approach Robles showed in April prior to injuring his back. (So was his fifth-inning walk, though he followed that up with an all too familiar gaffe, getting picked off first base.)

Thomas immediately followed Robles’ single with a no-doubt, two-run homer to left. The 427-foot blast was his team-leading 11th of the season, all of them coming since May 1.

"I think he throws three pitches for strikes," Thomas said of Luzardo. "He has a really good fastball, and when he wants to make it run and sink, he can. You add all those things together, it's tough to get a good swing off and time it up with what you're looking for. I was able to do it once, but he still got to me a few times."

Indeed, Thomas' homer was all the Nationals would get off Luzardo, whose afternoon nearly ended on a very different note. What if Garrett’s drive to center traveled 400 feet instead of 380?

Then again, when these two teams meet, did anyone really expect that to happen?

"Maybe just catching us at the right time," Corbin said. "We're not playing the best baseball right now. But their pitching is really good. They've been tough against us. It's the reason their record is what it is. They're playing good baseball this season. People have got to give them credit."