Jacob Turner did all he could to keep Nats in the game

DENVER - Unfortunately, the Nationals could not hold the lead Monday night in Denver.

The Nats led 4-1 but fell 8-4 to the red-hot Rockies.

If the Nationals had been able to hold their lead and win their eighth straight game, there would be talk about Ryan Zimmerman's mammoth homer to center field and the pitching of Jacob Turner.

The right-hander, 25, came through in one of the most difficult places to pitch in the major leagues.

Turner dialed up a quality start: six innings, allowing three runs on six hits with no walks and six strikeouts. He threw 84 pitches, 59 for strikes. Only Mark Reynolds' two-run homer prevented the outing from being outstanding.

Turner was at Triple-A Syracuse just three days ago. His contract was selected following Stephen Strasburg's placement on paternity leave.

Manager Dusty Baker, obviously disappointed in the loss, was impressed with Turner.

"Yeah, that was a quality start," Baker said. "Boy, I thought he had a chance to get out of that inning and was going to go into the seventh. That would have really been nice. He gave us all he had. He threw strikes. He threw quality strikes, all except to Reynolds, who is known to hit the ball out of the ballpark. He's been doing that for years. He had a good breaking ball. He threw a real good changeup to CarGo (Carlos Gonzalez) to strike him out. So he had a very positive outing."

Turner said it was all about attacking. But he also had to hit his spots.

"Yeah, I was just trying to stay aggressive, I think, especially here," Turner said. "You can't put extra guys on base if you don't have to. So just trying to stay as aggressive as I can in the zone."

Turner had experience with Marlins here. He knew what he was up against. He broke down his pitch selection.

"The fastball command got better as the game went on," Turner said. "I was trying to be aggressive, so really trying to establish in, get ahead in the count. I feel like as the game went on, some of the other pitches came back a little bit. The breaking ball was better the second time through the order.

"We put up four in the inning before so you're trying to go out and put up a zero. That's disappointing to give up that homer there. But just the same game plan, just trying to stay aggressive, no matter what the count is. He got me."

Can the pressure of playing in a hitter's park like Coors Field get to a pitcher?

"I don't think you really think about it a whole lot when your pitching," he said. "I'm trying to stay aggressive when I'm out there. Trying to give the team a chance to win especially with the travel schedule they had."

The next time Turner gets the call, he will just build off this start like he has with the Chiefs to begin this season.

"I feel like it's just a continuation of what I was doing in spring and then what I've been doing down in Syracuse.," he said. "I felt like I competed well. That's really what I focus on."

Right fielder Adam Eaton also was impressed with Turner's work. But he also conceded that Coors Field is a different kind of animal. Kind of like a grizzly bear.

"Yeah, he comes in for the spot start and does a really good job, keeping them off-balance early," Eaton said. "You know he's got a plus fastball and good breaking stuff. He gave us a really good boost there.

"But Colorado is a funny place. It's weird because in the outfield, you play so deep and sometimes you can give up the balls in front and then as soon as you start moving in they hit it over your head. It's kind of a tricky place for outfield to play and they did both tonight. They dumped it in front of us and they hit it over our heads. Back to the drawing board for tomorrow. We got a good team here. We are definitely going to bounce back tomorrow. We've been playing really good baseball as of late. Definitely see a comeback with a vengeance tomorrow."