Irvin labors as Nats drop homestand opener and fifth straight (updated)

After a rough start to the season on South Capitol Street, the Nationals have actually played better at home than on the road recently. Their .460 winning percentage at Nationals Park outpaces their .441 mark on the road. That bodes well for the remainder of the year, during which the Nats play 31 of their final 53 games at home.

Tonight started their longest homestand of the season, a 10-game stretch against the Brewers, Giants and Angels. To get to benchmarks of an improving season – such as a better overall record (71-91) and better home record (34-47) than last year – having a strong homestand over these next 10 days would go a long way.

But in the opener against the Brewers, who they took two of three against in Milwaukee right before the All-Star break, the Nats came up short to lose their fifth straight game by a score of 8-3 in front of 22,132 fans in D.C.

Jake Irvin appeared to be the right man to send to the mound to begin this three-game set. Although he struggled to end the first half, including being charged with seven runs (six earned) in four innings against these very Brewers at American Family Field, the rest during the break seemed to benefit him entering the second half. He allowed only four runs with 12 strikeouts over 12 ⅓ innings against the Reds and Cardinals, with the Nats winning both of those games.

However, Irvin wasn’t as efficient tonight, leading to an exit with two outs in the sixth due to a high pitch count.

“Jake was good," manager Davey Martinez said after the game. "Too many pitches. Not too many pitches, but he was at 110 pitches. Under the circumstances, I thought that was pretty good. I told him there will come a day where you stay in the game, but not right now.”

After only throwing 13 pitches in a scoreless first inning, the right-hander needed 32 to get out of the second, in which he gave up three quick runs. A leadoff walk and double to start the frame came back to haunt him as Rhys Hoskins picked up an RBI and Garrett Mitchell drove in two with another double.

Hoskins’ double followed the leadoff walk and was hit over James Wood in left field. Wood and CJ Abrams had a good relay to the plate, but Keibert Ruiz's tag was just a tad late to prevent the Brewers’ first run from scoring.

Irvin then put himself back into the same predicament in the third inning with another leadoff walk and double. But this time, the Brewers didn't score thanks to a strikeout and double play on a flyout to left and a dart thrown by Wood to the plate for the third out, keeping Milwaukee off the board.

“Command-wise there were a couple of walks, but outside of that the command was fine," Irvin said. "And I think that was just maybe a lack of, I don't know the right word, maybe a lack of finishing the pitches. Trying to execute them to a certain spot, but not getting the final finish on each pitch. But for the most part, command was fine today.”

The 27-year-old settled in from there, retiring the next six in a row with his offense tying the game at 3-3. But the last batter in the fifth proved costly as Irvin won an 11-pitch battle with William Contreras to end the fifth, which left him at 92 pitches.

“Good. Attacked the zone," he said. "But the second inning, to start that with a leadoff walk was a bummer. But other than that, I'm pleased with the way I threw the ball.”

Irvin returned to the bump in the sixth and recorded two outs, but had to depart with a runner at third and his pitch count all the way up to 110.

“If we're in September and he's dealing, he might stay in the game, yeah," Martinez said. "The last three innings he pitched, he was really good. I loved it.”

“I'm fired up that he let me go out there for the sixth then let me get that deep," Irvin said. "I would have loved to have stayed in and finished the sixth, but he had talked to me before the sixth and it already showed a lot and gave me a lot of confidence that he even let me go out there for that. So totally understandable at 110 at this point in the season. But yeah, at some point, that's going to be a situation that I want. And these are moments that you learn from.”

Robert Garcia entered to face the left-handed Sal Frelick, who the southpaw plucked with his second pitch of the night. Garcia then issued a four-pitch walk to load the bases and gave up a two-run single to pinch-hitter Blake Perkins to charge one more run to Irvin’s line and give the Brewers a 5-3 lead.

Irvin’s final line included six hits, four runs, two walks (both leading off an inning) and four strikeouts over 5 ⅔ innings, raising his ERA to 3.56.

Unfortunately, the bullpen behind him couldn’t keep it a close game as Jacob Barnes gave up a moonshot to Contreras that traveled 439 feet to dead center in the seventh. Then Jose A. Ferrer and Eduardo Salazar combined to give up two more runs in the eighth.

"I think that's happening, too, with our bullpen right now," Martinez said of his relievers' inability to locate their pitches. "We're just not locating our pitches very well. And you got to locate. That team can hit the ball a little bit. So you gotta locate your pitches.”

The Nats had flexed some power of their own to get back in this one after the early three-run deficit with Abrams blasting his 16th homer of the season off Frankie Montas in the third. The two-run shot went 396 feet over the scoreboard in center field to inject some energy into the ballpark. That energy carried over into the fourth with Ildemaro Vargas driving in the tying run on a single up the middle.

“Felt good," Abrams said of his homer. "I took a fastball low. Kind of keeping my sights up, higher in the zone, trying to spin on things down. And I got a good fastball to hit.”

But that was all they managed off Montas and the Brewers bullpen, even though they had a chance to respond in the bottom of the sixth by getting the first two batters on but eventually not scoring. They finished 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and left eight runners on base.

“We put a couple of good at-bats together. But we just struggled to kind of carry it throughout the game," Wood said. "We had a couple good innings. Just speaking for myself, I just gotta be a little bit more consistent. Instead of a couple of good at-bats, just be consistent. More good at-bats throughout the game.”

It’s just one game out of 10, but the Nats were certainly looking for more to start this homestand and snap this losing streak.

"Just didn't do the job," Abrams said. "We didn't score enough runs. But on to the next day.”