Not quite enough

By Dan Kolko

Nationals

May 19, 2012, 6:20pm

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When you fall behind 6-0, you're asking a lot of your offense. You're asking even more when that group has scored the third-fewest runs of any offense in baseball this year. The Nationals lost to the Orioles 6-5 tonight, marking their third-straight defeat and giving them just their third series loss of the season. It wasn't for a lack of effort. Ross Detwiler allowed six runs on nine hits over his five innings of work, and put his team in quite a hole. The Nats trailed 6-0 in the fifth inning, but they were able to work their way back into it and make this a ballgame. Washington got fantastic work out of its bullpen, with Craig Stammen, Ryan Perry and Henry Rodriguez combining for four shutout innings with only one hit allowed, and they got a run in the fifth, three more in the sixth and one in the ninth to cut the Orioles' lead to one. But that was as close as they could get. Ryan Zimmerman's solo shot with two outs in the ninth brought the tying run to the plate in Adam LaRoche, but he struck out swinging to end it. The Nats fall to 23-17 on the season and remain 1 1/2 games back of the Braves for the top spot in the National League East.