Nats swept out of Atlanta with extra-inning loss (updated)

ATLANTA – When it rains, it pours. An ironic use of that phrase on a beautiful day just outside downtown Atlanta.

But it’s true for the Nationals, who dropped their fourth straight game and were swept by the Braves with today’s 4-3 loss in 12 innings in front of 32,053 at Truist Park.

Jordan Weems, who pitched two impressive scoreless innings Friday night, was charged with the bottom of the 12th. The Nats intentionally walked Matt Olson to put two runners on for the right-hander. Austin Riley, who hit the tying home run in the eighth inning, stepped up to the plate and delivered the game-winning RBI single.

Tanner Rainey put up two zeros in the 10th and 11th innings, not without some tense moments, though.

Going back to the seventh, Davey Martinez brought in Kyle Finnegan to face the top of the Braves order and protect a 3-2 lead. Finnegan struck out the side easily, and since he last pitched Wednesday, he was plenty rested to go back out for a second inning.

“I felt really good today," Finnegan said after the game. "I felt like I had really good stuff, some of the best stuff I've had this year."

But facing Riley to start the eighth, Finnegan left a 98.1 mph sinker over the plate that Riley smashed 410 feet to left field, tying the game at 3-3. After a two-out walk, Carl Edwards Jr. came in to finish the inning (though not without a two-out walk of his own to put a runner in scoring position).

"I tried to go fastball down in to him," Finnegan said. "I've had some success there against him. He's a great hitter, so gotta be careful there, and just pulled it over the middle of the plate and he made a really good play for his team. He's been having a heck of a year. Showed he's got a ton of power and he put a really good swing on it. An unfortunate outcome for us."

“He was awesome," Martinez said of Finnegan. "He just threw one ball out over the plate to Riley. One mistake and it cost him. But he was great. He was pounding the strike zone and he was awesome.”

"That's baseball. It can happen in a blink of an eye," Finnegan said. "I felt just as good in the second inning as I did in the first. Just missed the location there and he did his job.”

Tied at 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth, Edwards was out for his second inning of work. He issued a leadoff walk to Ronald Acuña Jr., who moved up to second on a grounder to the right side. Up came the dangerous Riley, who, after running a full count, Edwards struck out with a 96 mph outside fastball.

Having lost nine of the last 10 games and 21 of the 23 games against National League East opponents, why not shake things up and try something different? At this point, it’s worth a shot.

Martinez seemed to think so when he made major changes to the top of his lineup for this afternoon’s finale against the Braves. Little did he know it would be the bottom of his lineup and a pinch-hitter that would deliver the biggest blow of the game.

Down 2-0 in the sixth inning with two runners and two outs, Martinez called upon Lane Thomas to pinch-hit for Yadiel Hernandez against Braves lefty reliever Dylan Lee. On the second pitch, Thomas hit a 81.2 mph curveball 109.1 mph off his bat and 402 feet into the left-field seats for a 3-2 lead.

“I faced him at home the last time and I had seen the slider before," Thomas said of his homer. "And I knew it was kind of a leverage situation. He throws a lot of them, so just kind of was ready for it.”

Martinez decided to give the struggling César Hernández a couple of days off to try to reset and bumped Luis García up to the leadoff spot for just the third time in his major league career. Then to separate two left-handed batters, Martinez moved the switch-hitting Josh Bell up the second hole and bumped Juan Soto down to the three hole.

Martinez’s said he moved García up to the leadoff spot so the young shortstop would see more fastballs. As a young hitter, García is a good fastball hitter but still struggles on off-speed pitches.

In his first at-bat, García saw three fastballs out of the four pitches offered from Braves starter Ian Anderson. It ended in a strikeout, but what Martinez predicted came true.

It didn’t hold true, however, as García only saw seven more fastballs among the 22 pitches over his next four plate appearances. He finished 0-for-4 with two strikeouts and a nine-pitch walk.

“He got good pitches to hit," Martinez said of García in the leadoff spot. "Like I said with him, he's just got to get the ball up. I talked to him before the game about not trying to ... get your walks and just go up there and hit. But get the ball up. Look for fastballs like he always does. He had some balls to hit. Hit a ball hard to shortstop today. He did walk. But I kind of liked it. So we'll give it a whirl here for a while and see what happens.”

Behind García, Bell went 0-for-2 with a walk and a double-play ball to close the seventh, and Soto went 1-for-3 with a walk. To Soto’s credit, that walk was the first of back-to-back free passes along with Nelson Cruz that set up Thomas’ three-run jack.

Altogether, it was not enough from the new-look top of the order to produce runs. And it trickled down throughout the rest of the lineup, as the Nationals were able to move the automatic runner over to third in each of the three extra innings, but were unable to move him home.

“We're not getting the ball in the air," Martinez said. "We're getting too many ground balls. We talk about it. We got to start getting the ball up, like I said yesterday, and start hitting the ball in there. Like I said, there's certain moments in the game where you got to sacrifice yourself to get the runner on base, move the guy over, things of that nature. We got to do a better job of doing that.”

On the mound, Paolo Espino made his sixth start as a member of the Nats rotation. Looking to bounce back after giving up four runs in each of his previous two starts, Espino delivered a strong enough outing to keep his team in the game, even though he didn’t get very deep into it.

Espino relied on his curveball early and totaled seven swings and misses on the pitch. But after one time through the order, the Braves started seeing it better.

With one out in the third, the Braves hit three straight singles off Espino's curve to plate the game’s first run. Then the right-hander walked the bases loaded and served up a sacrifice fly to Eddie Rosario on another curveball to make it a 2-0 Braves lead.

But Espino would get out of the jam to limit the damage and then pitch a 1-2-3 fourth inning on six pitches to complete his afternoon. He finished with two runs allowed on six hits and one walk with four strikeouts.

"The couple of hits he gave up, the balls just got up on him," Martinez said of his starter. "When he throws the ball down, he's really good. So like I said before, Paolo has done a lot of things for us. We gotta keep an eye on him. I thought what the heat and everything and he's got to come back and face these guys again next week, that we're in good shape in our bullpen to get him out of there."

Here they are again: The Nats are now 7-33 on the season within the National League East and 23-24 against everyone else. They have won just two out of their last 24 games against their division rivals. Overall, they are 30-58 and have lost 10 of their last 11 games.

“I think it's hard not to focus on the frustrating part," Thomas said. "But also, I think we know that we're close. There's a few pieces we can put in and figure something out and get a few wins, at least. So I think everybody's excited for the next few months and finish strong.”