Gore and bats battle inconsistencies as Nats drop series to Marlins (updated)

MIAMI – On Opening Day, MacKenzie Gore flashed the electric stuff that could make him one of the elite starting pitchers in baseball. Against a tough Phillies lineup, he struck out a career-high and Opening Day club-record 13 batters over six shutout innings.

Outings like that are the ceiling for the 26-year-old left-hander. The plan for him this season is to raise his floor by being more consistent throughout the year.

Today’s outing against the Marlins, unfortunately, epitomized the inconsistency Gore tends to battle.

In an 11-4 loss to the Fish, Gore had an up-and-down start throughout his six innings. Here’s how he fared in each frame in terms of pitches thrown and runs allowed: nine and zero, 25 and one, six and zero, 27 and two, 15 and zero, 23 and one.

That added up to eight hits, four runs, three walks and seven strikeouts on 105 pitches, 64 strikes.

“You don't want to give up four," Gore said after the game. "I thought we did a lot of the good things we've been doing. Gave up two-strike hits again. So that's something we need to understand who's hitting and where to execute a little better. But yeah, there were also some weird hits. Just kind of a tough one overall for us. But I still thought we did a lot of good things. Just we didn't put guys away when we had the opportunity in those longer innings to kind of keep them off from scoring.”

A leadoff walk came back to haunt Gore in the second after the Nats offense provided him with a 1-0 lead. The southpaw missed the zone on all four pitches to Eric Wagaman, who moved to second on a sacrifice bunt and scored on Griffin Conine’s two-out single.

Following a shutdown third, Gore was victimized by a weird bottom of the fourth, this time after his teammates gave him a two-run lead. Wagaman hit what would have been an RBI triple into the right field corner, but it was ruled a double because the ball got stuck under the wall padding, putting runners at second and third. Jonah Bride then hit a dribbler down third base line, which Gore fielded before diving to tag Kyle Stowers heading for home, just missing. And finally, Javier Sanoja tied it 3-3 with a base hit up the middle.

Again, Gore bounced back for a shutdown fifth inning. And again, he allowed the Marlins to score in the following frame, giving up the go-ahead run on a walk, wild pitch, single and sac fly.

Although the offense handed their starting pitcher two separate leads, they couldn’t rally in the end like they did in each of the first two games this weekend.

Luis García Jr. and Amed Rosario recorded back-to-back hits to begin the second inning, setting up Jacob Young’s first RBI of the season. Then Paul DeJong and Alex Call each drove in a run apiece in the top of the fourth.

As a whole, the bats collected seven hits – all singles – and five walks against Marlins starter Cal Quantrill. But they only scored three runs.

“I thought we did a really good job of getting guys on," Young said. "We had guys all over the basepaths all game, but we just didn't execute when we had guys on. I felt like we had a chance to kind of, not put them away, but get ahead early and kind of put the foot down on them. And we kind of let them hang around, and that's what happens.”

The Nationals had other chances to score, but some baserunning mistakes erased them.

Keibert Ruiz, who recorded two more hits today to briefly lead the major leagues with a .380 batting average, singled leading off the fifth and moved over to second on a fielder’s choice. But he inexplicably tried to steal third and was thrown out, ending the threat.

Young led off the seventh with an infield single and advanced to second on a throwing error by Sanoja. But he was caught in a rundown when Call hit a comebacker to the pitcher. The Nats would still get two runners on after that, but couldn’t push either across the plate.

The Nats then got the first two runners on base to start the eighth, but they again were left stranded.

“We couldn't capitalize, like I said," said manager Davey Martinez. "We just couldn't get that big hit when we needed it. So we're swinging bats well, we're taking our walks. Just come back tomorrow and go 1-0. But we need to capitalize. We've been doing a really good job of really capitalizing. Today it just didn't happen.”

The final nail in the Nats’ coffin was Matt Mervis hitting a pinch-hit three-run homer off the second pitch from Jorge López to break this one open at 7-3 in the seventh, prompting an eruption from the announced crowd of 13,969 at loanDepot park. It was the second straight day the Potomac, Md., native, Georgetown Prep grad and former Nats draft pick homered against his hometown team. And it came after the Nats failed to turn what would have been an inning-ending double play.

“The turning point was, I thought we should have turned a double play before the home run. It just didn't happen," Martinez said. "Then, you know, bad location on Mervis. We tried to get the ball up. He threw it down. That stuff happens. Early in the game, though, we could have put them away from the first inning on. We just couldn't capitalize on a bases-loaded jam they were in. When you let teams stay in the ballgame like that, things unravel. And then after that, it just got out of hand.”

And for good measure, the Marlins added three more runs in the bottom of the eighth off Lucas Sims. That did allow Cole Henry, who replaced the injured Orlando Ribalta this morning, to make his major league debut, allowing one inherited runner to score while recording his first two strikeouts.

Although this game eventually got away from them, the Nats would have liked to see more consistency from Gore and a few more clutch hits from the offense.

“Frustrating. Everybody's frustrated," Gore said. "But no need to panic or anything. We got a chance to go win a game tomorrow. We're still giving ourselves a chance to win every night. Do an extra thing here or there tomorrow, and we win a game.”

To do that, they'll have to do a better job of scoring runs against one of the best young pitchers in the game in Paul Skenes.

“The big thing is we just gotta forget about it, right?" Martinez said. "We gotta go back, we'll go to a new city now. We got a tough opponent again in Pittsburgh. They're playing pretty good baseball. They got a good pitcher going tomorrow. Let's come back tomorrow and just go 1-0. Put this one behind us.”