Hearing from Strasburg, Harper and Span after 6-2 loss to Braves

Right-hander Stephen Strasburg was fairly pleased with his outing, even though he took the loss in a 6-2 setback to the Braves.

In a scoreless game in the fifth, B.J. Upton was able to connect on Strasburg's first offering and hit it over the fence for a 1-0 Atlanta lead.

"Ball just found his bat," Strasburg said. 'I just got to make a better pitch 0-0. I felt great out there. I felt like I was hitting my spots and just couple hits that (were) just out of our reach that was the ball game."

In the sixth, the Braves mounted another rally. Freddie Freeman doubled, Justin Upton brought him home with a base hit, Tommy La Stella doubled, Christian Bethancourt added another run-scoring single and suddenly it was 3-1.

"Freddie is one of the best hitters in the game," Strasburg said. "You just got to go out there and try to execute pitches and he hit a pretty good pitch down the line there for the double.

"Made a bad pitch to La Stella with two strikes, trying to go in and it kind of came back over and he put a good swing on it. The 97 mph (pitch) down, that was probably ball three, too, the catcher just fought off and put out to right."

Strasburg, despite the loss, has now pitched in a career-high 195 innings over 31 starts. Does he still feel strong out there this late in the season?

"Good, yeah. Life's there," Strasburg said of his pitches. "I'm just trying to go out there and compete. Commit to every pitch that I throw, what I've been doing all year. Let the chips fall."

And his view of the Nationals at this point?

"We just got to keep going," Strasburg said. "Keep trying to win as many games as we can."

While the Braves were able to solve Strasburg for a few timely hits, the Nationals were unable to mount any sort of rally against right-hander Aaron Harang, who went seven innings, allowed no earned runs and struck out nine.

"I can't tell you why he's so good against us," Nationals center fielder Denard Span said. "But he just did a good job today. He just pitched well today. No ifs, ands or buts about it. He did his job and they were able to have a good win today."

"He's just a good pitcher," left fielder Bryce Harper said. "He goes out there with 88, 89 mph, touching 91 mph. He just pitches. He uses all of his pitches in every count. He flips the count sometimes where it's 1-2 and he throws a heater right down the middle and he gets you. Sometimes you get a little frustrated against a guy like that. You got to tip your cap."

Span and Harper were asked about the shadows that crept across homeplate and the infield as the they game wore on through the late afternoon. The first pitch was at 4:07 p.m.

"It was tough to pick up his pitches, I think, in the middle part of the game," Span said. "I was talking with a couple of their players when I was on base and they were saying it was pretty tough to pick up Strasburg, as well. You see a lot of guys swinging and missing, taking pitches right down the middle so you just have to battle through it and play through the conditions."

Harper agreed it was difficult to see the break on pitches, but warned that the team will have to learn to adapt because potential postseason games can also have late afternoon start times.

"Definitely it's tough. But I think we got to get used to it." Harper said. "We might have to play 5:05 p.m. like we did the first year, so definitely it's tough. We got to get used to it and go in there and not try and worry about the shadows and see what we can do.

"I think 5 o'clock is probably the worst it is. And then once an hour goes by, you are fine. It's pretty brutal the first three or four innings. It's definitely a pitcher's advantage. We got to get used to it a little bit."

Despite the loss, the Nationals did win their first series against the Braves since September 2013.

"We knew that in order to win this division, you got to beat them, so definitely a good series for us," Span said. "We did what we wanted to do which was win the series against them. Sitting pretty good."

"It's nice to be able to win a series, be able to come out strong and really play good baseball the past couple of days," Harper said. "Our pitching did very well. I thought we hit the baseball in key situations pretty dang well. It was nice to win a series."