Roark felt good despite another hard-luck loss to Phillies

Right-hander Tanner Roark certainly did not what that to happen again.

He pitched pretty well, but faced an opposing pitcher who recently has had the Nationals' number.

On Aug. 25, Roark allowed two earned runs in a 3-2 loss to A.J. Burnett and the Phillies. Burnett struck out 12 batters in that game.

On Saturday, Roark surrendered three earned runs and again lost to Burnett, this time 3-1. Burnett allowed the Nationals' only one run.

Despite the loss, his second straight to the Phillies, Roark still felt like he made some progress.

"Felt good. Felt like I was commanding both sides of the plate," Roark said. "Throwing everything at them. Everything was sharp."

Roark went with a lot of fastballs early in his start and then sprinkled in off-speed stuff later on. A "Nats Xtra" stat showed he fired 78 percent fastballs in the game, compared to his season average of 66 percent.

"That's just how I like to pitch, just locate it in and out," Roark said. "But in the second inning, I wasn't really. My ball was up. That was really what happened. It was up. It wasn't locating as well as I would like it to be."

Nationals manager Matt Williams said Roark had three pitches that he would probably prefer to have back. Two of those key offerings were the curveball to Ryan Howard for a two-run single and the 3-0 pitch to Dominic Brown for a solo homer.

"The curveball, I thought it was a good curveball to Howard - it was just out over the plate a little bit," Roark said. "Kind of got to get it a little more inside. The 3-0 (pitch to Brown), if he's going to hack 3-0, go ahead. The outcome was unfortunate, but it happens."

"I just felt they were elevated just a hair. Other than that, if I stay on top of it, put a little more sink on it, who knows what would've a happened."

Roark is now up to 179 innings on the season, the most he has ever thrown in a season. Is he changing his preparation any as the season moves along?

"Just keep the same routine, just keep working hard, don't slack off even though it's a long season," Roark said. "Just got to keep working hard."

Roark should not have his head down after the loss. Despite not being able to record a win since Aug. 15, he still has done what he was supposed to do: Keep the Nationals in each game. He's just got to get a game that's not against Burnett.