Soto-less Nationals drop fifth straight (updated)

Take a Nationals lineup already depleted by the trades of Trea Turner, Yan Gomes, Josh Harrison and Kyle Schwarber, then remove Juan Soto from the equation, and what do you get?

Well, you get this: The Nats were held to five hits (two of them in the ninth inning with the game already out of reach) by the Braves during an 8-4 loss tonight at Truist Park.

Already having a tough go of things one week after selling off just about every prominent veteran on their roster at the trade deadline, the Nationals had to go into this series opener in Atlanta without the services of the biggest name of all. After tweaking his right knee running the bases in the bottom of the ninth Thursday evening, Soto was held out of tonight's lineup as a precaution, leaving the rest of the batting order looking as thin as it has all year.

"He actually got up and took some swings and was available to pinch-hit in the ninth inning. So that's a good sign," manager Davey Martinez said in his postgame Zoom session with reporters. "We'll see how he feels tomorrow. He'll go through the gamut again tomorrow, run again and get some treatment, and we'll see. Hopefully, he's good to go."

The result tonight from a Soto-less lineup, unfortunately, was all too predictable. Though they did take the lead at one point after manufacturing a couple of runs, the Nats couldn't produce enough at the plate over the course of the entire game to emerge victorious.

So it was they lost their fifth straight, their 23rd in 32 games since July 1, to fall to 49-61 overall. At 12 games under the .500 mark, they've hit their low point of a season that threatens to continue to plummet as a rebuilding roster tries to hold its own against opponents still trying to reach the postseason and not get too down on itself in the process.

"Especially right now with the team losing so much, it's something that we have to keep working hard, and hopefully turn things around," Alcides Escobar, one of the few remaining veterans, said through interpreter Octavio Martinez. "Baseball is very difficult. It's one of those things you have to keep working and basically motivate them. Keep their heads up and motivate them to get past this."

Those who did take the field tonight did make the most of what little offense they did provide. And took full advantage of an excessively wild opposing starter.

Kyle Muller, the Braves' rookie left-hander, had all kinds of trouble gripping the ball and uncorked four pitches that hit the backstop on the fly, plus another wild pitch in the dirt while also hitting a batter. Thus did the Nationals manage to score a run in the third and another in the fifth without benefit of a base hit.

Tres Barrera scored the first via walk, wild pitch, flyout to right and another wild pitch. Gerardo Parra scored the other via hit-by-pitch, wild pitch, stolen base and a sacrifice fly that amounted to the first RBI of Erick Fedde's major league career. (It came in his 67th career plate appearance.)

"Really, that's all credit to Parra, finding his way all the way to third," Fedde said. "I'm just glad I put a barrel on the ball for once, finally. Great job by Parra to get to third there. I'm glad I could hit him in."

Another run scored in the fourth in more conventional fashion, with Escobar delivering a leadoff double and Carter Kieboom delivering a two-out RBI single, the latest in a recent surge of productive at-bats by the one-time top prospect still trying to prove himself at this level.

All of that gave the Nationals a brief 3-2 lead in the fifth. Brief, because the Braves immediately scored three runs in the bottom of the inning, all of them scoring with two outs, all of them scoring after the inning was continued when Barrera was called for catcher's interference upon making contact with Jorge Soler's bat.

It was one of several moments out of Fedde's control that doomed the right-hander on a night when he pitched better than his final line (five runs, four earned in 4 2/3 innings) would suggest.

The Braves recorded eight hits off Fedde, but only two of them featured an exit velocity higher than 92 mph. There were dinks into the outfield, there were doinks through the open side of a shifted infield, there were dribblers to third that turned into singles even when Kieboom did everything in his power to make the play.

Fedde certainly had opportunities to limit the damage himself, but it wasn't entirely his fault he was in such a position in the first place.

"It's one of the more frustrating things, I'd definitely say," he said. "In a couple days, on my bullpen day, I'll feel better about it knowing my stuff was good, and it's not something where I was getting hit all around the park. But when you come out of the game there and you're thinking you threw well and your stuff was good, it's tough to swallow."

But it was enough to leave the Nationals in a hole. And when Javy Guerra dug the hole even deeper during a three-run bottom of the eighth, their fate on this night was all but sealed: Another loss for a team that is suffering losses at a rate not seen in these parts in a long time.

"We've just got to keep plugging away," Martinez said. "Keep plugging, come back tomorrow and do it again and, hopefully, go 1-0 tomorrow."