Wildest game of year ends with loss in 14th (updated)

Who knows how this wild 2019 season will end for the Nationals, whether they'll catch the Braves and win the National League East, whether they'll hold onto one of the league's two wild card berths or whether they'll collapse and miss the playoffs altogether.

Here's what we can say unequivocally about the 2019 Nationals: They do not quit. No game is ever out of reach. No matter how demoralized they may be at one moment, they refuse to stay down until they've used up every last breath.

"This team is incredibly competitive," manager Davey Martinez said. "They don't quit."

That doesn't necessarily mean they always emerge victorious. Tonight's 15-14, 14-inning loss to the Brewers was a reminder of that. This team still has its flaws, and they were on display during this marathon game that had a little bit of everything.

The wildest game of a wild season lasted 5 hours, 40 minutes and saw the Nationals come from behind both early and late. And then even later. It also saw Sean Doolittle collapse in a ninth inning that included three home runs in the span of four batters. It saw the Nats come oh-so-close to coming right back to win in the bottom of the ninth, only to strand the bases loaded with nobody out to send the game into extra innings.

It saw Javy Guerra, the last man standing in an exhausted bullpen, serve up Christian Yelich's second homer of the night, a solo shot in the top of the 13th that put Milwaukee on top, just as the clock struck midnight.

It saw Asdrúbal Cabrera draw a leadoff walk, Kurt Suzuki advance him to third with a one-out single during which the veteran catcher cramped up but had to stay in the game because the Nationals had no more players available, then Victor Robles send a sacrifice fly to left to improbably tie this game yet again.

And it finally saw an exhausted Guerra, on his 37th pitch, serve up a two-run homer to Eric Thames to right-center in the top of the 14th. The last man standing in the Brewers bullpen, the unrelated Junior Guerra, would then finish off the Nationals in the bottom of the 14th - but only after another run scored on an error with two outs, then the tying run reached third base, only to be stranded there when Joe Ross (a pitcher pinch-hitting for another pitcher) struck out.

"Seeing the guys battle was definitely awesome," Guerra said. "I definitely came up short. But I think overall as a team, we showed a lot. It just shows you what we've done all year. These guys don't quit. They grind it out, make it work. I wish it would've (gone) our way, but it didn't."

The Nats saw their five-game winning streak end. They also dropped a game in the standings and now trail the Braves by 5 1/2.

None of this would have been necessary if not for the four runs Doolittle gave up in the top of the ninth, all scoring via three home runs off the stunned closer.

Down but not out, the Nationals stormed right back in the bottom of the ninth against Brewers closer Josh Hader, getting a leadoff walk from Yan Gomes, a double by Suzuki and an RBI single by Robles to tie the game again. And after an intentional walk of Howie Kendrick, the Nats had the bases loaded with nobody out, needing for one of the guys from the top of their lineup to simply get the ball out of the infield to bring home the winning run.

They couldn't do it. Hader struck out Trea Turner, Adam Eaton and Anthony Rendon in succession, exasperating the crowd of 36,953 that was ready to bring down the house if the home team won the game right then and there.

"He's tough," Martinez said of Hader. "We had three pretty good hitters. Trea worked a really good at-bat. Just 3-2, missed a pitch. But we had a chance to score. Bases loaded, no outs. It just didn't happen."

The bullpen did its best to keep giving the lineup chances. Tanner Rainey struck out four batters across two scoreless innings of relief, and Guerra struck out the side in the top of the 12th.

But the Nationals could not take advantage of those opportunities, posting four straight zeroes after scoring 12 runs from the third through the ninth innings before their last-ditch attempt in the 14th came up short.

Juan Soto, Eaton, Turner and Kendrick had all homered to bring their team back from an early 5-0 deficit and energize a hot Saturday night crowd. Hunter Strickland and Fernando Rodney each pitched a scoreless inning out of the bullpen to get the ball to the ninth, at which point Martinez had a decision to make.

Up three runs, the simple call was to give the ball to his closer. But Doolittle has not been himself over the last month, often looking spent from his heavy workload. And so Martinez had the option to instead use Daniel Hudson despite the save situation. (Afterward, Martinez did say he was trying to give Hudson the night off.)

In the end, he stuck with Doolittle against the heart of the Milwaukee lineup. And he paid dearly for it, from the get-go.

Yelich sent Doolittle's second pitch flying down the left field line and over the fence for his 40th homer of the season as the crowd murmured. Keston Hiura followed with a double to the gap in left-center. Mike Moustakas then belted a two-run homer to left-center, tying the game, officially blowing the save and leaving the crowd despondent.

"It just wasn't coming out tonight," Doolittle said. "And that part of the order, that team? There's really nowhere to hide."

As Hudson furiously warmed up in the pen, Doolittle remained on the mound to face another batter: Ryan Braun. His very first pitch wound up in the left field stands, the Brewers' third homer of a frantic inning, the seventh Doolittle has now allowed in his last 10 appearances.

"I'm still searching for answers, to be honest," he said. "I don't know. We keep trying to go back to the drawing board. We're watching film. We're looking at the metrics. We're doing extra dry work before games. We've changed up a lot of my routine in the weight room and my maintenance programs. I don't know."

All of this came at the end of a wild affair that began in distressing fashion but quickly turned in favor of the home club.

Under normal circumstances, Aníbal Sánchez's four-inning start might have spelled doom for the Nationals. The veteran right-hander was done in by a disastrous top of the third that saw seven consecutive Brewers reach base, five of them scoring. It was his worst start since late April, back when he remained winless.

This Nats club, though, is built to withstand the rare rough outing by a starter. A deeper bullpen helps. But a deep and potent lineup capable of making up a deficit in short order is the real key.

Sure enough, the Nationals clawed their way back from the 5-0 deficit, tying the game in only two innings, thanks to two big blasts.

The first came from Soto, who after fouling off four pitches from Jordan Lyles got a curveball over the plate and drove it the opposite way for a two-run homer, his 26th of the season.

One inning later, an unlikely power source struck to tie this game up. Eaton hammered a 1-1 pitch down the right field line and into the bullpen for a three-run homer and a 5-5 game by the end of the fourth.

Even Matt Grace's latest bullpen blowup - two homers, three runs allowed, three outs recorded - couldn't derail this Nationals train. Despite facing another deficit, they stormed right back with five straight baserunners in the sixth to take their first lead of the night.

Back-to-back doubles by Suzuki and Robles got the rally started. Turner's three-run blast on a first-pitch curveball from reliever Freddy Peralta then brought the biggest roar of the evening from the crowd (to that point).

Up 9-8, they didn't let up. Kendrick delivered the most jaw-dropping homer of the game with a two-run, 430-foot homer off the dark green curly W logo that resides on the batter's eye in dead-center field.

The dugout dance party was on in full force, and what had been a "B" bullpen game only a few innings earlier was now an "A" bullpen game for a Nationals club that can't help but keep putting itself in position to win close games late every single night.

They just aren't able to pull it off every single night. Which leads to long and frustrating nights like this one.

"We just fight," Soto said. "We fight the whole time. We just play 14 innings, fighting the whole game. We came back a couple times. We can't do more than that."