With chance to sweep Padres, Nationals lose another close one

SAN DIEGO - On a night when Bryce Harper was held out of the lineup for the first time this season, when Gio Gonzalez needed 59 pitches just to get through his first two innings and the Nationals managed only one run off a rookie starter, the mere fact they were in prime position to beat the Padres late was telling.

The fact they couldn't take advantage of that position and wound up losing 2-1 also was telling.

Unable to get a clutch hit from those who did start and unable to get clean innings from their secondary bullpen arms after Gonzalez departed with a high pitch count, the Nationals fell short in their series finale at Petco Park and missed an opportunity to sweep the last-place Padres before heading to Arizona for a tough, four-game weekend set with the red-hot Diamondbacks.

"Hey, we won two games," manager Davey Martinez reminded reporters at the end of a postgame session that featured mostly negative questions about the loss. "Two out of three to start the road trip. I'll take it."

Certainly, there's little reason to complain about the overall picture of a Nationals club that entered tonight's game having won 9-of-10 and having righted what not long ago looked like a wayward ship. But this was yet another low-scoring, one-run loss against a beatable opponent, and those continue to be an issue for this team.

The tone was set early when Gonzalez slogged his way through his first two innings in excruciating - yet somehow effective - fashion. Those two frames included five baserunners (three via walk), an error (charged to Gonzalez) and that whopping total of 59 pitches.

And yet, maddening as it was, Gonzalez wriggled his way out of it all without allowing a run, yet the latest example of the lefty's uncanny ability to dig himself out of a hole of his own making.

"What I've learned is to just go out there and pitch, try to be aggressive," he said. "I know it sucks to put yourself in those situations. Obviously, if it would've been a little different, if I would've had a little more tempo, a little more rhythm, I'd be talking a little differently. But I worked my pitch count up. I wasn't being aggressive in the strike zone. Finally, it worked."

Indeed, Gonzalez proceeded to pitch quite well after his initial two innings. The only blemishes against him were back-to-back doubles in the fourth that led to San Diego's first run. Otherwise, he settled into a nice groove and made it through six innings with only the one run on the scoreboard.

The trouble, as it often is with Gonzalez, was his pitch count. By piling up his tally early, he couldn't keep the number down the deeper he got through the game. And so even though he was pitching well at the end, he had to be pulled after six innings with his pitch count at 110.

"He struggled to throw strikes, but he battled through it," Martinez said. "He gave us six innings. He gave us an opportunity to win the game."

True, but because the Nationals had been unable to score more than the one run they got via Anthony Rendon's fourth-inning homer off rookie left-hander Joey Lucchesi - "Not facing him before, it's always tough," Ryan Zimmerman said. "But at the end of the day, you have to put that aside. He's very similar to a lot of lefties." - Martinez couldn't turn to his top three relievers to finish things off.

And so it was Trevor Gott on the mound for the bottom of the seventh, at which point Manuel Margot produced a leadoff single, stole second and advanced to third when Trea Turner couldn't handle Matt Wieters' short-hop throw. Two batters later, Margot scored the go-ahead run on Matt Szczur's double to deep left.

Gott (0-2, 5.68 ERA) got out of the inning without any more damage, and Shawn Kelley escaped an eighth-inning jam created by Sammy Solís. But the portion of the Nationals bullpen that doesn't include Sean Doolittle, Ryan Madson and Brandon Kintzler once again was unable to post zeros in a close ballgame.

"We have to give them a chance," Martinez said of his second-tier relievers. "And I don't put them in the games because I don't think they can do the job. I put them in the games because I think they can do the job. I have confidence in all of them. They're going to get a chance to pitch."