On Robles' game, Thompson's success and Cruz's injury

NEW YORK – More observations and reactions from Friday night’s 7-3 loss to the Mets …

* Victor Robles had another Victor Robles kind of game. Which is to say he was involved in a number of notable plays, some of them producing positive results, some of them producing negative ones.

Positive: Robles led off the top of the third with a triple to right-center, only his second of the season and only the 10th of his career. He then wound up scoring moments later when Mets catcher Tomas Nido tried to pick him off third on a dropped third strike to Lane Thomas, only to throw the ball away ad allow both Robles to score and Thomas to reach first base on a strikeout.

“A very risky play,” Robles said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. “But he took the risk, and I took advantage of it.”

Negative: Robles broke in too quickly on Brandon Nimmo’s two-out line drive to center in the bottom of the sixth, the ball sailing over his head for an RBI triple that extended New York’s lead.

“He’s got to learn how to just play deep,” manager Davey Martinez said. “He was way too shallow. He should’ve been about 10-15 feet further back. But we always say when he makes a mistake, it’s kind of aggressive. I thought he thought it wasn’t going to be hit that hard over his head. He broke in, and then, by that time, it was too late.”

Positive: Robles threw out Jeff McNeil at third base on Nido’s fourth inning sacrifice fly, an odd play in which Daniel Vogelbach tagged up and scored before McNeil (who pulled up short and stretched out the play) could be tagged by third baseman Ildemaro Vargas.

It was the kind of throw the Nationals have been imploring Robles to make with more regularity, taking a sure out (or, at least, preventing a trailing runner from advancing) rather than attempting to make a far more difficult throw to the plate that could end in disaster.

“Very encouraging,” Martinez said. “It was good to see that some of our conversations are getting to him. If he can continue to do that and play smart baseball, he’s going to be OK.”

* It didn’t garner a lot of attention, because it came in the seventh inning with the Nationals trailing by four runs, but Mason Thompson retired the side with three groundball outs. In his first appearance since his recall from Triple-A Rochester, the young reliever threw 10-of-12 pitches for strikes and used his trademark sinker to induce groundballs.

Though he hasn’t pitched that much in the majors this season, Thompson has enjoyed considerable success. The right-hander has now made 10 appearances and allowed only one run on five hits and three walks.

Look for Thompson to get more opportunities to pitch in situations of consequence over the final month.

“I want to get him out there,” Martinez said. “It’s a tough part of their lineup. Even though we were down, I wanted to see how he would handle it, and he did well. When he’s going really good, that’s what he does: He keeps the ball on the ground, and he did well today. … If we can get that out of him, we’ve got another guy that can potentially help us out of the back end of our bullpen.”

* Nelson Cruz departed the game after two at-bats, the second one which saw him foul a ball off his right knee.

Cruz, who struck out in that at-bat, was replaced as designated hitter two innings later by Alex Call, who proceeded to deliver a two-out RBI single but then immediately was picked off first base.

The 42-year-old Cruz is day-to-day, according to Martinez.