After disastrous relief appearance, Solís back to square one

Saturday's game was already out of hand before Sammy Solís ever took the mound at Nationals Park. The Braves held a 9-0 lead after eight innings, so this was supposed to be nothing more than an opportunity for Solís to get some work in and further distance himself from a long stint on the disabled list.

And then over the course of one agonizing inning of (to be honest) meaningless baseball, Solís wound up creating more questions about his status and what the Nationals should do with him now.

"There's really not an answer," the left-hander said after allowing four runs in only one-third of an inning. "That's what I'm searching for right now. The toughest part is, all I can keep doing is just keep working. You know, all I can do is just keep pitching, in order to make things better right now, to keep going back out there."

Solís' appearance was a fully acknowledged disaster. He opened the ninth by walking Freddie Freeman, the last thing any pitcher wants to do in a nine-run game. Matt Kemp and Nick Markakis followed with singles, and then Matt Adams crushed an 0-2 pitch to left-center for a three-run homer.

That blast left Solís as the owner of a hard-to-believe 15.43 ERA for the moment. (He brought it down to 14.73 by the time he departed.)

"I feel physically strong, and the ball is coming out well," he said. "Velocity is not really down. I think it's more of a matter of executing pitches. I'm getting ahead of guys 0-2, 1-2 a lot, but I've given up a lot of hits in those counts, too."

Solís wound up retiring only one of the seven batters he faced Saturday before getting unceremoniously yanked by Dusty Baker and retreating to the dugout a chorus of boos from the fans that remained in the park for what was now a 13-0 game.

He has now made four appearances since returning from nerve inflammation in his left elbow, and he has been scored upon in all four appearances. Twelve of the 21 batters he has faced have reached safely. Six of the 10 hits he has allowed have been for extra bases.

This is not the boost the Nationals expected to be getting for a bullpen that desperately needed one. And now it leaves them trying to figure out where to go from here with a guy who had a 2.74 ERA in 55 relief appearances over the last two seasons but now sports one roughly seven times larger after 10 appearances in 2017.

"We just have to see and talk to him," Baker said. "He said he was ready when he came up, but he might have not been ready. We have to talk to him and see kind of what's going on."