Homers haunt Corbin again in Nats' latest loss (updated)

The Nationals' objective over the final two months of this season, first and foremost, is to identify which young players are going to be part of the organization's long-term plan. That's what made a game like Saturday night's 3-2 victory over the Braves, in which Josiah Gray dazzled on the mound and Riley Adams delivered a momentous blast at the plate, so uplifting for anyone associated with the club.

But the 2022 Nationals aren't going to be made up entirely of kids. There are going to be a handful of veterans on the roster, either because their services are needed or because they're already under contract and they aren't moveable.

Patrick Corbin falls squarely into that category, and right now he's among the Nats' biggest concerns. He's signed for three more years, he's still owed $82 million and he currently owns the highest ERA in the majors at 5.83 after allowing five runs in six innings during today's 5-4 loss in Atlanta.

"He's definitely a huge part of our success moving forward, that's for sure," manager Davey Martinez said in his postgame Zoom session with reporters. "He's a veteran pitcher. He understands the game. I truly think he's been throwing the ball really well. We've just got to get him past that one inning. It seems like he has one inning where things go awry on him. We've got to get him past that inning."

Victimized again by a late rally that included a home run, Corbin turned a nip-and-tuck ballgame into a daunting deficit for his teammates to overcome. And unlike the previous night, the Nationals couldn't quite complete a last-ditch inspiring rally to flip the score.

Seeking to get as much as he could from his depleted lineup, Martinez gave Josh Bell his first start in right field in five years, freeing up first base for Ryan Zimmerman. The unconventional defensive construction didn't cost the Nationals; only two balls were hit to Bell during the game, and though he overthrew the cutoff man on one of them, it didn't appear to have altered the outcome of the play.

But neither did the move inject quite enough life into the Nats from an offensive standpoint. Zimmerman went 3-for-5 with two RBIs, including a run-scoring double with two outs in the ninth, but Bell went 1-for-5 and made the final out of the game, leaving Zimmerman stranded at second.

"Zim definitely put me in a position to have multiple opportunities to drive the runners in," Bell said. "You look at the game he had today, it was spectacular. Hopefully here in a few days, I'll be ready to go again (in the outfield) and we'll see what happens and see if Davey throws me back out there."

Corbin was pleased with his stuff in his last start, but was frustrated he still wound up allowing four runs in seven innings to the Phillies, all of the runs scoring on three homers.

And the lefty once again had to be pleased with his stuff this afternoon, in particular a slider that did exactly what he wanted it to: look like a fastball at the knees coming out of his hand, then dart down and in on a right-handed hitter.

That effective breaking ball allowed Corbin to be exceptionally efficient. He needed only nine pitches to get through the first inning, then seven to get through the second. Add in a six-pitch bottom of the fifth, and he made it through that portion of his start on a scant 46 pitches in total.

"I thought his stuff was really good today," Martinez said. "He was pounding the strike zone. He had 68 pitches (after six innings). It's just some of the balls he left up over the plate left the ballpark."

And that's why Corbin and the Nationals still found themselves trailing, because he was victimized yet again by the longball. After allowing a seeing-eye single to opposing pitcher Max Fried with two outs in the third, Corbin left a fastball up to Ozzie Albies and watched it soar over the center field fence.

And then came the final series of blows. With two outs in the sixth, a runner on first and his pitch count still a scant 62, Corbin came undone in a manner all too familiar. Austin Riley doubled into the right field corner, bringing Dansby Swanson all the way home from first, and Adam Duvall followed with a no-doubt homer to left, turning a 2-1 Braves lead into a comfortable 5-1 advantage.

"It's tough to look back on the outing and say what I would've done differently," he said. "We had a good gameplan. They just got those three runs late. Obviously, you want to try to put a zero up. It just seems that's the way it's been going for me. I don't really have an answer for it. I feel good. That's all I can really say. The results just haven't been there."

It was the 37th home run Corbin has allowed over the last two seasons (covering a total of 187 2/3 innings pitched). Only the Rangers' Jordan Lyles has allowed more among all major league pitchers.

All of this has left Corbin looking like a shell of the pitcher who posted a 3.25 ERA with 238 strikeouts in the 2019 regular season, then notably delivered several clutch relief appearances between starts during the Nats' championship run in October.

"I think a lot of people forget, he was, for lack of better words, abused in 2019 in the playoff run," Zimmerman said. "He did things that he's never done before for us to win that World Series. I think people think you just recover from that, come back the next year and everything's fine. ... I think you've seen the last three or four starts, he's throwing 93, 94, 95 (mph). I even saw a 96 his last start, I think. He's getting a lot more swings and misses on his slider. I'm not worried about Pat. He works hard. I think he's going to rebound."

Fried seemed far less effective than Corbin during his six innings on the mound today. If nothing else, he was far less efficient, needing 105 pitches to record his 18 outs. But the Nationals managed only one run off the lefty, that one coming on Alcides Escobar's RBI single in the third.

Otherwise, the Nats squandered their best opportunities, going 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position until a late attempt to rally off the Braves bullpen. RBI singles by Victor Robles and Zimmerman off Jesse Chavez cut the deficit to 5-3 in the seventh. And then Zimmerman's double with two outs in the ninth reduced the deficit to one run, but that's as close as they got on a day when Martinez tried something unconventional to get both of his first basemen in the lineup at the same time.

"Anytime you can lengthen the lineup and get more guys in there," Zimmerman said, "obviously it's better."