Sloppy, banged-up Nats drop another close game (updated)

CLEVELAND – Over the course of this afternoon’s game at Progressive Field, the Nationals allowed two runs to score on a popup, allowed another to score all the way from second base on a wild pitch, had one of their own runners tagged out after rounding third base too far, had another picked off first base even when he wasn’t being held on, saw their manager get ejected, saw their shortstop get scratched shortly before first pitch due to injury and saw their center fielder depart later due to injury.

It was, by any measure, an ugly performance from the visitors, the kind of performance they couldn’t afford against one of the majors’ hottest teams.

And yet, somehow the Nats still found themselves with a chance to beat the Guardians, if only they could come through with one modest rally before game’s end. Alas, they could not. And so this went down as a 3-2 loss, and certainly one of the weirder and more frustrating losses of the season.

"You feel like we lost that game more than they won it," catcher Riley Adams said.

Already playing without shortstop CJ Abrams, who was scratched less than an hour before first pitch due to a jammed left shoulder suffered Friday night, the Nationals also lost center fielder Jacob Young to a swollen right hand he first noticed after making a long throw to third base in the seventh inning.

"It's been fine for a while now," Young said, suggesting the issue perhaps existed prior to today. "It just kind of blew up out of nowhere. That's what made me say something."

That forced bench coach Miguel Cairo (filling in as manager after Davey Martinez was ejected in the top of the third) to cobble together his outfield for the rest of the game, which ended with Joey Gallo in left, Lane Thomas in center and Eddie Rosario (who started in left and briefly shifted to center) in right.

To call the first four innings of today’s game sloppy would be too kind. The Nationals don’t always play 100 percent clean baseball, but they hadn’t played like this in a while.

The first gaffe came in the bottom of the first, which saw Mitchell Parker load the bases with one out but nearly pitch his way out of the jam when he struck out Johnathan Rodriguez and got Kyle Manzado to pop up a ball into shallow left field. That ball, though, somehow fell to the ground between three fielders, with Ildemaro Vargas (filling in for Abrams at shortstop) seemingly pulling up after hearing either Rosario or third baseman Nick Senzel call him off.

"(Vargas) should've caught the ball," Martinez said. "He called it. He waved. My assumption is he heard someone else call it. But he's gone that far. Just catch the ball. The ball's got to be caught."

Whoever was to blame, two runs scored on the play. Two runs the Guardians didn’t exactly earn on their own.

Sloppy defense again led to a run in the bottom of the third. Senzel couldn’t make a play on José Ramírez’s grounder to third. Ramírez then stole second and somehow scored all the way from second on a wild pitch that got deflected off Adams and rolled all the way to the dugout railing. Even so, Adams still managed to get his throw to the plate in time, but Parker positioned himself too far away from the plate to be able to get the tag down, and so it was now 3-0.

"It's just one of those weird things that's going to happen," Parker said. "It doesn't always happen, but when it does it kind of catches you a little off-guard. I've just got to be ready for the next one."

"First of all, the ball's got to be blocked. There's no excuse for that," said Adams, placing the blame on himself. "I've got to keep that in front of me."

The Nationals could’ve scored themselves by that point, but they botched a golden opportunity on Senzel’s double to left in the top of the second. Luis García Jr., who was on first at the time of the hit, came racing around the bases and was prepared to round third with Ricky Gutierrez initially waving him around. But then Gutierrez put up the stop sign as García reached third, and that was far too late for García to slam on the brakes in time without being tagged out to kill the rally on the spot.

"We're not swinging right now. We're not hitting," Martinez said. "We thought we had a chance if (Gutierrez) held him up, and Luis slipped trying to get back and just couldn't get back."

One inning later, Malachi Moore called Young out for swinging at a high-and-tight pitch the umpire believed struck Young on the hand. Except Young insisted the ball hit his bat instead, which should’ve made it a foul ball, prolonging the at-bat. Moore would have none of it, especially when Martinez came storming out of the dugout to argue, leading to the manager’s second ejection of the season.

"I was confused why he kept on saying I swung," Young said. "I was just trying to explain that the ball hit the bat. Being an umpire, it's tough when the ball's coming in like that. So many things are moving. It's just what happened."

"It was a foul ball," Martinez said. "The ball hit the knob of the bat, and it rolled almost all the way to our dugout. For me, he missed a call. He said he didn't hear it, he didn't see it. That stuff can't happen. We'll see what they tell me tomorrow, but clearly that was a foul ball."

As ugly as all that was, the Nationals still found themselves in the game, thanks in no small part to a botched defensive play by Cleveland in the top of the fourth. Rodriguez bizarrely slipped and fell on what would have been a routine fly out to right by García. Instead, the Nats had two runners in scoring position thanks to the gift base hit, and both came around to score on Joey Meneses’ ground out and Jesse Winker’s RBI single. (Winker, though, was then picked off first to end the inning.)

"We've got to play better," Martinez said. "And we've been playing good. I'm not going to critique the way we're playing. But today we were just sloppy. We need to come back tomorrow, play the way we have been playing and try to win a ballgame."

Things did settle down after that, thankfully. Parker bounced back from his shaky first inning to reach the sixth. And though he did issue a career-high four walks, he ultimately departed having allowed no more than three runs for the ninth consecutive start to begin his major league career.

"It was a pretty funky first inning. I really couldn't locate any pitch any time that it mattered," Parker said. "After that, I just kind of settled down. You either roll over and give up, or you keep fighting, give the team the best chance to win. I was just trying to keep us in there as best as I could."

That wasn’t enough to earn Parker his fifth win, though, not on a day the Nationals played perhaps their sloppiest game of the year.

"It always hurts more when you let one get away, self-inflicted wounds more than the other team beating you." Young said. "It definitely hurts more than others. ... We know we can play with these teams. We just have to clean it up a little bit, and get the hits when we need it."