Nationals had action late but were done in by earlier mistakes

CHICAGO - That the Nationals "had action" - as Dusty Baker likes to call it - several times late in today's 7-4 loss to the Cubs speaks to their ability to rarely be out of a ballgame, even one that felt like an uphill climb from the outset.

Then again, with a couple of well-placed pitches in a couple of key situations earlier, the Nationals might not have found themselves trying to finish off a comeback but instead a wire-to-wire victory.

In the end, the Nats' attempted rallies against the back end of the Cubs bullpen were made all the more daunting because of two home runs their pitching staff surrendered earlier: Alex Avila's two-run shot off Edwin Jackson in the first and Willson Contreras' two-run shot off Matt Grace in the sixth.

Each blast turned a one-run deficit into a three-run deficit, leaving the Nationals in a deeper hole than they had been in only moments earlier.

"We were slow-walking them, and we had it down to one run in the middle innings," Baker said. "So we thought we had a great chance of snatching that game away from them. Their bullpen held on, and that was a big two-run homer that Contreras got. That turned a one-run game into a three-run game. So that was kind of the gist of the ballgame."

Avila's homer capped a disastrous bottom of the first for Jackson, who retired only one of the first six batters he faced, threw 31 pitches and returned to the dugout having surrendered four runs. But what could have been a nightmare of a start was considerably salvaged by Jackson, who following the Avila homer retired 13 of the final 14 batters he faced to keep the Cubs to those four early runs.

His final pitching line - four runs and six hits allowed in five innings on 101 pitches - didn't look good at all. But it didn't tell the entire story of the right-hander's afternoon.

"He battled," said catcher Matt Wieters, who was ejected after complaining about the strike zone to plate umpire Chad Whitson at the end of the sixth. "He grinded through the first inning, which was a long inning for him. But then he knew he was going to have to keep it right there to give us a shot, and he did that."

There may be no more erratic pitcher in baseball over the last decade than Jackson - he once threw a no-hitter and gave up 10 runs in 2 1/3 innings in the same season - so perhaps nobody knows better than the veteran how to turn a bad start into a respectable one.

"From then on, it's just keep the game close," he said of his approach after the first inning. "We can definitely come back from three runs. And that was my objective: OK, damage been done in the first inning. It's over. Nothing I can do about it. Make my adjustments, and keep us intact."

When Jackson departed after the fifth, the Nationals had trimmed the deficit to 4-3, thanks to fourth-inning RBIs from Anthony Rendon and Wieters. But when he needed his beleaguered middle relievers to keep the game right there, Baker watched as Grace gave up two quick runs in the sixth, than as Matt Albers gave up another in the seventh (with some help from Jose Lobaton's throwing error on a stolen base attempt).

Even so, the Nationals had their chances late. Rendon came up to bat in the top of the eighth with two on and one out; he grounded to second, though a run scored when Javier Báez's attempted double-play turn was wild.

Then came the top of the ninth, with Wade Davis on the mound for Chicago and a three-run deficit still to overcome. Lobaton and Brian Goodwin managed to draw back-to-back, one-out walks, ensuring the tying run would step to the plate.

Wilmer Difo struck out, leaving it up to Bryce Harper. The star slugger, who homered and wowed the sellout crowd with a remarkable throw from right field to third base earlier, fouled off a 1-1 cutter over the plate and then whiffed at a 1-2 curveball in the dirt, ending the Nationals' last-ditch rally and ending the game.

"I'm just trying to hit a homer," the ever-frank Harper admitted. "Tie it up a little bit and go extras and roll the dice. I got one pitch I can hit, hit it foul. Tough at-bat after that."