Injury-ravaged Nationals fold late in loss to Phillies (updated)

PHILADELPHIA - They might not have ever admitted it publicly, but the Nationals knew the deck was stacked against them when they took the field for today's series finale against the Phillies.

On a gray, windy, rainy Sunday afternoon, the Nats fielded a lineup with only three regulars who started on opening day. Their usual leadoff hitter was batting third. Their backup catcher was batting cleanup. Their fourth-string first baseman had just flown in on a red eye from Las Vegas.

And yet for five innings today, this cobbled-together club was right in the thick of it. Behind some gutsy pitching from Aníbal Sánchez and yet another homer from Kurt Suzuki, the Nationals entered the sixth inning trailing the first-place Phillies by a lone run. The opportunity to steal a win few would have foreseen as possible was right in front of them.

And then the game fell apart via two longstanding culprits: poor relief pitching and bad defense.

A five-run bottom of the sixth, featuring a string of singles off Matt Grace and missed opportunities to make plays in the field, turned a surprisingly competitive ballgame into a more predictable rout. The Phillies emerged with a 7-1 victory, and the Nationals limped off to Milwaukee a battered and bruised club just trying to hang on through the remainder of a daunting May road trip.

"We can't give teams 30-31 outs," manager Davey Martinez said. "Can't happen."

Losers of five consecutive series and eight of their last 11 games, the Nats (14-19) won't get a break for another week, with three games at the Brewers and four more at the Dodgers still looming before they return to D.C. for a day off and then a homestand against the Mets and Cubs.

The schedule is daunting enough, but the challenge feels even more daunting when you consider the current state of this team's roster.

The Nationals' Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5 hitters from their opening day lineup (Trea Turner, Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto, Ryan Zimmerman) all were on the injured list before the day began. Then Matt Adams, the backup first baseman and recent cleanup hitter, joined them this morning with a strained left shoulder. Michael A. Taylor remained on the active roster but presumably was unavailable after jamming his left wrist Saturday night and needing an MRI.

That left Martinez to fill out a lineup card that included Adam Eaton (normally his leadoff man) as the No. 3 hitter, with Suzuki (the No. 2 catcher) as his cleanup man. Suzuki had actually held that role 70 times in his career, though most came nine years ago when he with the Athletics. So, what did he think when he saw his name in that spot today?

"I'm not going to say that on air," he said with a laugh. "I don't really change anything. It's just a spot in the lineup the first time through. The lineups roll over, and things happen. So you really don't necessarily hit fourth every inning."

Tempted as he was to include Howie Kendrick somewhere in the heart of the lineup, Martinez just couldn't do it, not after the 35-year-old had started seven of the last eight days, after missing most of last season with a ruptured Achilles tendon, after missing much of this spring with a strained hamstring, with a wet field here in Philly and seven more games to play before the team returns home.

The results, from an offensive perspective, were predictable. The Nationals managed one run off Phillies starter Zach Eflin: Suzuki's solo homer in the fourth, his third of the weekend.

And yet they trailed only 2-1 when the sixth inning rolled around, and those two runs scored only because of two first-inning defensive gaffes by rookie infielders: Carter Kieboom and Jake Noll.

"I don't really have an excuse for it. I messed up," said Noll, who let César Hernández's sharp grounder to first go right through his legs to allow both runs to score. "I should've made the play. Big play in the game, and I didn't come up with it."

Sánchez wound up having to throw 44 pitches during that extended first inning, and that put the veteran right-hander behind the 8-ball for the entire afternoon. But he battled through it, struck out nine and finally departed with two outs in the fifth having thrown 108 pitches.

"In the first inning, I threw a lot of pitches," Sánchez said. "For me, that's the key to the game. I've never thrown that many pitches in the first inning. I just wanted to throw as many pitches as I can the rest of the innings and keep us in the game."

Might the Nationals find some way to eke out another unlikely win, as they did Saturday during a wild, 10-8 victory? No, because everything collapsed in the bottom of the sixth.

Grace, who struck out the first two batters he faced, watched six of the next seven batters he faced reach safely during an agonizing inning of relief. Everything happened via singles and one double. But plays again weren't made in the field, the lowlight coming on Eflin's safety squeeze, a play in which Grace, Suzuki and Noll all moved toward the ball but couldn't figure out who was going to pick it up until it was too late and everybody was safe.

"I didn't know if I should vacate home and concede the run, or stay at home and try to get the guy out," Suzuki said. "It was just a perfect bunt. They executed their play."

Down six runs and not wanting to burn up the rest of his bullpen, Martinez left Grace in to wear one for the team. The lefty would throw 42 pitches in 2 1/3 innings, an unofficial waving of the white flag by a manager who tried to get whatever he could out of his depleted roster today but eventually succumbed to reality.

"We were in the ballgame," Martinez said. "After the first inning, Sánchez pitched really, really well. Kept us in the game. He had to come out because he had 108 pitches. And then Grace comes in, gets a strikeout, and I felt really good with him. The one bunt, we couldn't get an out. We get an out there, we're pretty much out of the inning. But we couldn't get an out right there, either."