Nats suffer fourth straight blowout loss

CINCINNATI – The Nationals have had their fair share of issues to begin this 10-game road trip. That’s the easy way to put it.

What are those issues? Much of the same. Poor pitching, lack of hitting and sloppy defense.

You’ve seen this story before. Now for the fourth time this week, actually.

Entering this four-game series against the Reds, the Nats had been shut out in back-to-back games and were riding a 21-inning scoreless streak. That streak extended to 27 ⅓ innings before they finally scored a run. But it was just one run, and that wasn’t nearly enough in this 8-1 loss in front of 12,799 at Great American Ball Park.

The Nationals were averaging 3.0 runs per game over their last 14 road games before tonight. That number is going to shrink after scoring just the one on Josh Bell’s seventh-inning home run to left field, his fifth of the season.

“Again, we're taking too many strikes and we're chasing too much," manager Davey Martinez said after the game. "Swinging at a lot of balls. We're not a team, you know, if we're going to take our walks, but we're a team that's aggressive early in the counts and get pitches to hit and swing at them. But today we took too many balls in the zone and chased.”

The Nationals were averaging 6.0 runs allowed per game over their last 14 road games before tonight. That number is going to inflate after Joan Adon and three relievers allowed the Reds to score eight runs.

Home or away, that’s not a good recipe to win ballgames.

The bats struggled against Reds rookie starter Graham Ashcraft, who was coming off 6 ⅓ scoreless innings against the Giants in his last start. The right-hander induced a lot of weak contact to hold the Nats to just four hits, two of them coming in the seventh. In fact, the Nats only mustered four balls out of the infield over the first six innings.

"Yeah, it was our first time seeing him," Bell said of Ashcraft. "So you watch video, but it's a little bit different being in the box trying to get hits against him. Good little mix of cutters and two-seamers, upper 90s (mph) and he kind of threw that slider-curveball thing whenever he wanted."

As for Adon, his night got off to a rocky start, but he actually was able to turn it into a decent outing.

After a single and walk in the top of the first, Adon served up a three-run home run to Joey Votto (who entered the night batting only .173 with two homers in 33 games this season).

But that would be all Adon would allow over his 5 ⅓ innings. He had a chance for a quality start after entering the top of the sixth, but was pulled  after striking out Mike Moustakas with Kyle Farmer stealing second, the Nats only down 3-1.

“I think it was a good outing," Adon said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "I maintained us in the game, which is my main reason for being out there: To keep us in the game and try to be out there as long as possible, which I think I accomplished.”

After the home run to Votto, Davey Martinez thought Adon's third time facing the left-handed veteran (which was a groundout in the fifth after a walk in the third inning) was a teaching moment for the young pitcher.

“He settled in after the first inning," Martinez said of Adon. "He's facing a future Hall of Famer there. Just let the ball out over the plate a little bit. He had a growth moment there where we let him face him again. And he made the pitch he needed to make and it got him to ground out. And that's good. I mean, that's good for Adon. So he's maturing, he's learning. I want to see him get through that inning. Let's see what he does. And he did it. And like I said, he kept us in a ballgame. He gave up three runs, but he kept us in the game.”

“What can I say about that at-bat?" Adon said of Votto's homer. "The home run that he hit, I believe, was a good pitch. He just was able to get it out. So I was just trying to execute my pitches out there and I did in the (third) at-bat.”

Erasmo Ramirez took over and got out of the sixth. But when he returned for the seventh, he gave up a solo homer to former National Matt Reynolds on his first pitch to make it a three-run game again.

After a Tommy Pham sacrifice fly, Josh Rogers entered from the Nats bullpen. He would go on to give up a three-run homer to Farmer and officially make this a blowout.

But again that’s not new for the Nationals this week. They’ve now suffered four straight losses by scores of 13-5, 10-0, 5-0 and 8-1.

There is still time to turn this series – and this road trip – around. But they’re going to have to play much cleaner baseball. Something we haven’t seen in a while from this group.

“Just keep going," Bell said his message is to his younger teammates. "Obviously, the guy on the mound is getting paid for a reason, he's up in the big leagues for a reason. So I think the most important thing is trying to make the at-bats for the guys behind you a little bit easier. So try to draw that walk when you can, try to get that dirt ball if they're on and try to get that runner in scoring position to help the guy behind you.”

“Hey, a swinging bat is a dangerous bat. I mean, right?" Martinez said. "The only way we're gonna get out of this is by getting good pitches and swinging at good pitches. And attacking the strike zone early. That's what we're really good at. When we're going good, we go up there and we're ready to hit. The last few days, I'm watching and we're taking too many strikes, we really are. And putting ourselves in a hole. Like I said earlier, this game is hard enough. And when you always put up there hitting with two strikes, it's even harder. So let's be aggressive early and come back tomorrow, go 1-0 tomorrow. But I want to see these guys swing the bats aggressively early and hit strikes.”