Nats squander chances at plate again, fall to Phillies (updated)

You can point to a number of reasons the Nationals find themselves in the basement of a tight National League East division in mid-May, but inevitably you come back to the same irrefutable conclusion: They just aren't scoring enough runs on a consistent basis to win games.

Even when they get a less-than-stellar showing from their starter, or meltdown from their bullpen, the Nats still find themselves facing a key moment late in a game in which one big hit with runners on base could be the difference between victory and defeat. And it feels like it's always the same people standing in the batter's box in those moments, and in most cases they are failing to deliver.

"We need to get one or two big hits in a moment, and I believe things will turn around for us," manager Davey Martinez said in his Zoom session with reporters following tonight's 6-2 loss to the Phillies. "We're that close. We get one or two hits in a big moment - bases loaded, a couple guys on - I think things will change for us."

Maybe so, but it's not happening, not on a regular basis. Tonight's loss fit the growing narrative to a T. A game that felt eerily familiar for much of the night - an early deficit while the lineup did nothing at the plate - saw the home team show some life late to make things interesting.

But when it came time for the most significant moment of the game - bases loaded, two out, the Nationals trailing by one run in the seventh - the man at the plate was the last man anyone in the crowd of 8,559 wanted: Josh Bell.

Entrusted to bat third despite a .141 batting average when the day began, Bell struck out on four pitches from Phillies flamethrower José Alvarado, who had created the bases-loaded mess on a double and two walks. As the big first baseman trudged back to the dugout, his batting average down to .134 following an 0-for-4 evening, a good portion of the crowd of 8,559 booed.

"I do my best to block it out and focus on the moment," Bell said. "I know we still have a ton of baseball to play, and a ton more at-bats if I stay healthy. It's called an average for a reason, thank goodness. It's obviously not where I'd like it to be. But I know it can only go up from here."

Bell is hardly the only one to blame for the Nationals' offensive woes, but he is taking the brunt of the finger-pointing right now because he was general manager Mike Rizzo's most high-profile acquisition of the winter and has been entrusted to bat behind Juan Soto, for whom he's providing awfully little protection right now.

"I moved him down the lineup (last week) a little bit just to ease his mind a little," Martinez said. "But him and (Kyle) Schwarber and (Starlin) Castro and those guys, they've got to hit. They've got to hit in the middle of the lineup. They understand that. I don't want to put any pressure on them, but I want to get them up there."

As was too often the case last season, the Nationals are only getting consistent production from Soto and Trea Turner, whose leadoff homer in the sixth provided the home team its first run of this game. Soto would soon thereafter score on Schwarber's RBI single on the 11th pitch of his at-bat, trimming the deficit to 3-2.

But everything fizzled after that. And when reliever Kyle Finnegan surrendered three insurance runs in the top of the eighth, a game that had been within reach no longer was, and the Nats were headed to their fifth loss in six games.

If someone who hasn't been paying attention needed a quick summation of the Nationals' season to date, the first inning tonight provided everything you need to know. Bryce Harper launched a solo homer off Erick Fedde (his old teammate not only with the Nationals but way back at Las Vegas High School) into the second deck to give the Phillies an early 1-0 lead.

"It was supposed to be up and off the plate," Fedde said of his cutter to Harper, which wound up right in the slugger's wheelhouse, producing his third homer in his last four plate appearances against the righty.

The Nats followed by getting exactly what you'd want from your No. 1 and No. 2 hitters to open the bottom of the first: back-to-back singles. Alas, when those hitters are Turner and Soto, there's still a less-than-ideal chance either will come around to score given the names of the struggling batters behind them in the lineup. So it was that Bell, Schwarber and Yan Gomes failed to even advance the runners, posting a zero for the inning and leaving the team 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position.

Also emblematic of the Nats' season to date: Fedde's start. Nobody would dare claim the right-hander looked sharp tonight. He had all kinds of trouble putting hitters away and needed a whopping 67 pitches just to complete his first three innings. But Fedde somehow minimized the damage to three runs and found a way to get through the fifth with his pitch count a respectable 87.

It certainly wasn't a quality start, yet when he walked off the mound Fedde had at least given his team a chance to win.

"I would've wished a little better of an outing," he said. "But knowing that the team was still in it makes going to sleep tonight a little easier."

Fedde gave them a chance, but only if the Nationals lineup could get something going, something which once again proved impossible for a large portion of the evening. They managed only one baserunner following the Turner-Soto singles to open the first until the end of the fifth, and that only came because Chase Anderson drilled Schwarber in the back with a fastball.

And so for the 11th time in 31 games this season, the Nats were scoreless entering the sixth inning.

"It puts a lot of pressure, not just on the offense, but also on the pitching," Martinez said. "Pitching's going out there and trying to throw up zeros and keep us in the game. We're going to have to score early. When we score early, we're pretty good."

When they don't, they find themselves scrambling to create chances to win late.

And more often than not, they're not making the most of those chances.