Struggling offense to blame for early-season woes

PHILADELPHIA - Nats starter Gio Gonzalez was cruising through six scoreless innings when he suddenly lost his command with one out in the seventh. Back-to-back walks and a hit batter loaded the bases and forced Nationals manager Matt Williams to the mound to end Gonzalez's night.

Williams seemed baffled after the game at how quickly the storyline changed for Gonzalez.

"I don't know," said Williams. "He lost the strike zone. He still hadn't given up a run. He walked two guys and hit a guy in that inning. He just lost it. Just lost the command he had for six innings prior. Not bad but just off the plate. But load the bases there. The last guy that he hit tried to come in and just went too far. Other than that inning, he threw the ball really well."

Gonzalez struggled for answers as to how it unraveled so quickly in the seventh.

"Trying to be too perfect," said Gonzalez. "Just walked people, hit a guy. Just when you think you're moving at a fast pace, they slowed you down and that's what happened. Little here and there and nit picking the corners trying to get at 'em. They kept fouling off a lot of pitches so they worked the count pretty well."

"I felt great all the way to the seventh inning and just couldn't find it after that. I couldn't explain it if I wanted to. It's tough to say. I gotta throw strikes. I gotta get the guy out. I gotta execute. I do a better job."

Williams opted to go with left-hander Xavier Cedeno instead of righty Craig Stammen to face the switch-hitting Cesar Hernandez, who Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg had called on to pinch hit after Gonzalez loaded the bases. Hernandez wasted no time as he laced a liner to right field, scoring two and giving the Phillies the lead while changing the face of the game. Cedeno's night would end shortly after when he hit center fielder Ben Revere to again load the bases. Meanwhile, the Phillies would hold on for a 4-1 win.

Williams explained his call to go with Cedeno after the game.

"Well, we've got both of them going," said Williams. "The pinch-hitter is a younger player. He's got good speed. We need to get a grounder there. He's a better left-handed hitter than right-handed hitter. They've got two other lefties that are proven on the bench over there. We wanted to get that guy and deal with the next guy that comes up there in Revere. Turned out that the pinch hitter got a hit, and X hit Revere and we had to go to Stammen."

The veteran lefty Matt Thornton was available to pitch and has only made one appearance so far this season to Cedeno's three.

"Tough inning there," said Cedeno. "Tough situation. But I'm just trying to do my job there. Just come in and do what I know how to do, just throw my pitches. I couldn't execute and it didn't work out."

Meanwhile, the alarming story of the game and season thus far is the Nats' inability to score runs. They managed only one tonight and it came when center fielder Michael A. Taylor led off the game with a homer off Phillies starter Jerome Williams.

"We need to feed off things like that," said second baseman Dan Uggla who was 0-for-3 tonight. "We had some good at-bats in the first inning. We just never really got it going. (Williams) just shut us down. He made his pitches and he got the best of us tonight. We've got to bear down. We've got to start hitting more line drives and some balls in the gap, some balls out of the yard, and I'm sure off we'll go."

The Nationals are a dismal 3-for-22 with runners in scoring position this season and have only put seven runs on the scoreboard through the first four games.

"We've just got to keep running them out there," said Williams. "Guys in our lineup have been there before, they've had success, they've done it. We're not worried about that. Just keep going with it. There are no excuses for not scoring enough runs. We believe in our guys. We believe in their ability. We'll just keep going."

Right fielder Bryce Harper struck out three times for the second consecutive night. He has collected five hits in 15 at-bats so far but eight of his 10 outs have come on strikeouts.

"Last at-bat, he took a called third," said Williams. "Third at-bat, he expanded the strike zone a little bit. You go through those stretches. I like where he's at. I like the way he's been swinging it. He got a base hit up the middle the first time tonight. He'll be fine. I like where he's at."

The easy excuse is to point at the absence of third baseman Anthony Rendon along with outfielders Jayson Werth and Denard Span in the lineup. Werth may return soon but the Nats will most likely be without Span and Rendon for a few more weeks.

It's one thing for Mets ace Matt Harvey to hold the Nats scoreless but futility reached another low when the journeyman Williams shut them down tonight.

"Nobody's pressing," said Uggla. "We know as a team we've got to score more runs. It's still really early, but we can't be saying that forever. We've got to make the adjustment and start putting some runs on the board. We do have some key guys out, but we have way more talent than what we've shown the last four games offensively. It's a matter of bearing down, sticking your nose in the dirt and getting it done."