Promising homestand starts with a dud

This was not the start the Nationals were looking for to begin a crucial nine-game homestand. After traveling all night back to D.C. following Thursday's loss in Denver, the Nats appeared to sleepwalk through much of tonight's 10-3 blowout at the hands of Brewers.

The Nationals pointed to this run of games in front of their home crowd as a chance to make a move on the Mets in the National League East. Instead they find themselves five games behind New York, the furthest the Nats have been out of first place since May 2.

After the game, the message continued cascading down from manager Matt Williams and out the mouths of his players.

"Just a loss," said right fielder Bryce Harper, whose solo homer in the sixth was one of the few bright spots.

"It was just one game," spouted right-hander Doug Fister. "That's why we play 162 of them."

Not exactly the sense of urgency you would expect from a team watching their playoff hopes drift away.

Gio Gonzalez turned in another shorter-than-needed outing, lasting just five innings after giving up five runs (four earned) on eight hits with two walks and five strikeouts. Domingo Santana delivered the big blow on a two-run homer to left in the fifth as the Brewers opened up a 5-1 lead.

Harper's bomb cut the deficit to three in the sixth, but the game then got out of hand after the Brewers sent five men across the plate in the seventh.

Four hits, a walk, a catcher's interference call and an error enabled four runs to score off Fister and another off Tanner Roark in the sloppy frame.

"It's important for us to be competitive in all aspects," Williams said. "Tonight, it wasn't that way. Again ... I'll preach it again. We think this way: Tonight's over, we have to get them tomorrow. Certainly want to be out there playing clean and getting the outs we should get and not giving them extras. You pay for it eventually."

The Nationals have now won just two of their past 10 games and lost consecutive games to the cellar-dwelling Rockies and Brewers. It seems like even the veterans are grasping at a plan to right the ship.

"Getting on a run for us is just a matter of getting a couple of balls to fall our way, whether it mean bleeders or great plays on defense," Fister theorized. "We need some momentum, something just to keep us going. Guys are playing hard, they're putting together good at-bats. Pitchers are grinding it out. We just haven't had it go our way consistently yet. All it takes is one day of some good stuff followed by the next one. We've just gotta start that tomorrow."

Williams indicated Yunel Escobar is day-to-day after injuring himself while in pursuit of a foul pop fly off the bat of Adam Lind in the first inning.

"He ran into a fan trying to catch that ball," Williams said. "As he went to reach for it, he kinda leaned over with his upper body ... the fence caught him at the waist and he hyperextended his neck a little bit. So he's a little sore. We'll see how he is tomorrow."