Same old script for Nats in shutout loss (updated)

With a five-star pitching matchup between two of the National League's best, it wasn't unfair to walk into Nationals Park today and wonder if the first team to score was assured victory in the series finale.

Who knew it would actually play out just like that, with the winning run scoring in the top of the first?

Maybe it all was too predictable in the end, this 3-0 victory by the Brewers. The Nationals aren't losing games in unusual fashion right now. They're losing them in practically the same manner every day they take the field, watching their starting pitcher make one or two costly mistakes and then watching their lineup put up very little fight trying to come from behind.

The formula played out just like that again today, with Max Scherzer allowing a two-run homer to Avisaíl García in the top of the first, then Brandon Woodruff shutting down the Nationals' tepid lineup for seven scoreless innings before handing it over to the Milwaukee bullpen.

Austin Voth would give up a tack-on homer to Omar Narváez in the top of the ninth, but it didn't matter. The Nationals couldn't muster a rally against either Brad Boxberger in the eighth or Josh Hader in the ninth - sorry, there was no repeat of the 2019 NL wild card game today - and thus were swept for the weekend in undramatic fashion.

"We've got a lot of baseball left in that game," manager Davey Martinez said of the early deficit during his postgame Zoom session with reporters. "We've got Max on the mound. I try to pump up the guys, saying there's plenty of baseball. Let's just come back and try to score. And just stay positive. That's all you can do: Stay positive."

A nine-game homestand that began with a sweep of the Orioles ended with five losses in six games to the Reds and Brewers, the Nats scoring a total of nine runs in those final six games (only three in three games versus Milwaukee, which included a total of 15 hits, 12 of those singles).

"Obviously, we wanted to finish what we started with the O's," first baseman Josh Bell said. "I think the atmosphere in the clubhouse right now is: Go on (the road) to the Braves, go to the Phillies. We have big baseball games ahead of us. If we can turn things around right now, in division, it couldn't be a better time. We've just got to shower it off and keep pushing forward."

The manner in which the Brewers scored in the top of the first couldn't have come as a huge surprise to anyone who has followed the Nationals this season. It was right on script.

After issuing a one-out walk of Daniel Vogelbach, Scherzer got Christian Yelich to tap a comebacker to him. Scherzer turned and threw to Jordy Mercer covering second, but there was no realistic chance to turn the double play. That allowed García to bat with two outs and Yelich on first, and that proved critical moments later when Scherzer left a 1-2 fastball over the plate and the Brewers cleanup hitter launched it to center field for a two-run homer.

"That was the difference in the ballgame," Scherzer said. "You knew runs were going to be at a premium. Made a mistake in what I was doing, in terms of sequencing and everything, and paid for it. I wish I would've been better."

It was the third time in four days a Nationals starter surrendered a first-inning homer, with Scherzer joining Stephen Strasburg and Patrick Corbin in that club. And it continued a longstanding trend that has seen the three-time Cy Young Award winner get beat by the longball, and by nothing else.

Fifteen of the 18 earned runs Scherzer has now allowed this season have scored via home run. And often, that's been all the opposition has needed to win a low-scoring game.

"I'm not going to sit here and say as soon as I give up a run, we're going to lose," he said. "I have confidence in my teammates and what they're going to be able to do. Over the past handful of starts, it has worked out that way. But look, you've got to rise to the occasion. You've got to match it, especially when you're going up against Woodruff, who's throwing the ball extremely well this year. You've got to execute every single time out. Every pitch matters. That's what happens when you get in pitching duels like this."

True to form, Scherzer gave up nothing else the rest of the way after the early blast today. He responded to the García homer by retiring 16 of the next 17 hitters he faced, the lone exception an infield single by Kolten Wong in the top of the third.

Along the way, Scherzer recorded 10 strikeouts for the 101st time in his career. And with his pitch count only at 89 after the top of sixth, he looked like he had plenty more in the tank. And he almost certainly would've stayed in the game, had his teammates simply been able to do anything at the plate versus Woodruff to that point.

Because his batters could not touch Woodruff - only two of them reached base through the game's first five innings - Martinez made the decision to send Yadiel Hernandez up to pinch-hit for Scherzer with one out and nobody on in the sixth. The decision boiled down to this: With the top of the lineup about to come up and his team down 2-0, Martinez figured he needed to do whatever he could to get a runner on base for Juan Soto (who was leading off for only the second time in his career), Trea Turner or Bell.

"We needed to get some offense," Martinez said. "We needed to get someone on. We had Soto leading off. I thought Yadi did a great job there."

Sure enough, Hernandez reached base, drawing a seven-pitch walk to bring Soto to the plate representing the tying run. Soto would see six pitches from Woodruff. He did not swing at any of them. The third and fifth of those pitches appeared to be well off the outside corner, but Sam Holbrook called them strikes nonetheless. That prompted Soto to grumble from the batter's box and hitting coach Kevin Long to bark from the dugout. The latter was ejected.

There was no grumbling from Soto, however, on the sixth and final pitch of the at-bat, a 97 mph sinker over the plate for strike three. He was perhaps still thinking about the previous two called strikes.

"I'm positive that happened to Juan," Martinez said. "All of a sudden, for whatever reason, Sam wanted to ring him up. And it was only 3-1 at that point. And he rung him up like he wanted him out. You could see it frustrated Juan a lot. He just lost the at-bat right there."

Turner did follow that sequence with a broken-bat single down the third base line, putting two on with two out for Bell. But while the big first baseman managed to drive a ball to the warning track in left, he couldn't drive it far enough to get a run home on a day (and a week) in which it was a seemingly impossible task to do that.

"I think we knew after the first inning or so, the zone was probably a little bigger than what we're used to," Bell said. "But that's part of the game as well. It's tough. I know my next at-bat, I would call it chasing down and away. I think those balls might've been called strikes. In that scenario, I've got to put the ball in play. It's just tough luck in those regards. It's not going to be like that every night."