Kintzler regrets using off-speed pitches in four-run inning

The vast majority of Brandon Kintzler's appearances this season should come with the Nationals leading, or perhaps tied, late in games. But the right-hander hadn't pitched in a week, and with the club off Friday, manager Davey Martinez wanted to make sure he and fellow bullpen stalwarts Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle got some work in Thursday regardless of the score.

So it was that Kintzler found himself on the mound for the top of the seventh, the Nationals trailing the Mets 4-2, the right-hander tasked with keeping the game close so his teammates could mount a late rally.

Six batters later, Kintzler was left fuming at himself on the mound after serving up a grand slam to Jay Bruce that broke the game open and ultimately propelled New York to an 8-2 victory.

The big blast came off a 3-2 fastball down the pipe to Bruce, who launched it into the bleachers in right-center. Had he thrown a few more of those earlier in the inning, though, Kintzler thinks the entire frame might have ended in a different fashion.

"Pitch selection, for me," he said when asked what the biggest problem was in the four-run inning. "Just way too much off-speed. I don't throw that much off-speed. Just (got) away from my game plan I normally do, and one of those days happened. So I'll get back to my normal plan."

Kintzler threw 29 pitches in the inning. Eight of them were sliders, nearly 28 percent of his pitches in total. That's in stark contrast to his typical approach; last season he threw sliders only 14 percent of the time.

"That's just not what I do," he lamented. "I normally attack with fastballs, both sides of the plate. And first pitch to a lefty, hit a double. It was slider, and just felt way out of whack."

That one-out double by Brandon Nimmo got the Mets' rally going. Walks to Michael Conforto and Yoenis Céspedes compounded the problem, bringing the left-handed Bruce to the plate to face Kintzler. With nobody warming in the bullpen, there was no alternate option for Martinez.

"He made some really good pitches, and then he made one pitch that wasn't very good," the manager said. "But he pitched well. He hasn't been out there, so we had to get those guys out there. We don't know what the weather's going to be like this weekend, so I wanted to make sure the three of those guys got out there."