Eighth inning dooms Nationals again in 6-5 loss to Mets

NEW YORK - There isn't much you can definitively say about a baseball season after only seven games, but here's one point that appears safe to say even at this super-early juncture: Every single National League East game - perhaps except for those involving the Marlins - is going to be an absolute grind in 2019.

It's April 6 and already the Nationals have played seven games against the Mets and Phillies, and every single one has felt like a late-September showdown with postseason berths on the line. This is what it's going to be like every single night, and the team that emerges victorious the most from these intradivision tilts is probably going to come out on top in the end.

So far, the Nationals have come out on the losing end more times (four) than they've come out on the winning end (three). They've had chances to win just about every game, but as was the case today during a gut-wrenching 6-5 loss to the Mets, they've left several potential victories on the table.

And the common theme in just about all of these losses has been a disastrous bullpen that simply can't post zeros with any regularity.

As has been the case countless times already, a great pitchers' duel between dominant starters was rendered moot by day's end. Patrick Corbin and Steven Matz excelled early on, and this looked like it would a low-scoring affair. But then the bullpens got involved, and you know what happened next.

The Nationals struck first. Trailing 3-1, they manufactured a run in the seventh, then took the lead in the eighth thanks to home runs by Anthony Rendon and Wilmer Difo, the latter an upper-deck shot to right that had the spunky infielder flexing his muscles.

But the Nats still needed to get six outs from their beleaguered bullpen. And that again proved too monumental a task to achieve.

Justin Miller, who had thrown 25 pitches Wednesday and 16 more pitches Thursday but has proven to be the lone reliable reliever outside of closer Sean Doolittle, got the opportunity to protect a 5-3 lead in the eighth. The lead was gone two batters later when Pete Alonso and Robinson Canó blasted back-to-back homers.

Tony Sipp was summoned later in the inning with two outs and nobody on, yet the veteran lefty failed to retire any of the first three batters he faced, with Keon Broxton's RBI single up the middle proving the difference that gave the Mets a 6-5 lead and accounted for the 17th run surrendered by the Nationals pitching staff in the eighth inning alone this season.

Mets closer Edwin Díaz then brought a sense of normalcy to the proceedings with a scoreless ninth, dashing the Nats' hopes of another comeback.

Corbin was brilliant the first time through the lineup, keeping the Mets flummoxed with his fastball-slider combo. He struck out seven of the first 10 batters he faced, all the more impressive considering he had just faced this same lineup six days ago in D.C.

But all it takes is one swing to undo all that. Or, in this case, three swings, all of which caused maximum damage. J.D. Davis got the Mets on the board when he ambushed Corbin's first-pitch fastball in the bottom of the fourth, lining the ball over the right-center field wall. Two innings later, Davis did it again, this time driving a Corbin fastball deep to left.

And when Conforto lofted a slider into the second deck in right field later in the sixth, Corbin's start - dominant as it was most of the time - suddenly took on an entirely different look.

The tone might have been different had Corbin's teammates been able to stake him to an early lead and made those late homers less damaging. Alas, despite Matz's wildness and sky-high pitch count (51 through two innings), the Nationals couldn't convert and make the Mets lefty pay for it.

Not until the top of the sixth, when Rendon singled and Juan Soto and Ryan Zimmerman followed with productive outs, did the Nationals finally get on the board. And that came after Matz was pulled with his pitch count at 103 despite zero runs allowed.

Down 3-1 in the seventh, the Nats took a couple of gambles in an attempt to tie the game up. Davey Martinez decided to pinch-hit Matt Adams for the slumping Brian Dozier, and though Adams eventually struck out he only did that after Victor Robles scored all the way from second base on a ball in the dirt that Wilson Ramos couldn't locate.

That cut the deficit to one run. One inning later, Rendon cut the deficit to zero runs. He drilled Jeurys Familia's 1-1 pitch to right-center for his third homer of the young season. And as a Flushing crowd of 35,156 grew restless, the Nationals grew emboldened. And when Difo did his thing moments later, the feeling only intensified.

And then the Nationals bullpen gate swung open, and if you've paid any attention to this season, you know what happened next.