Martinez needs club to "scratch and claw" after 11-4 loss to Red Sox

This time it wasn't close.

The Red Sox used a six-run fifth inning to run away from the Nationals 11-4 before a sellout crowd of 42,531 at Nationals Park.

Suddenly, a Nats team that was riding high at 33-22 is back to .500 at 42-42. They are 4-14 since June 14.

Similar to Monday, Boston raced out to a 3-0 lead. This time it was a three-run homer by Eduardo Núñez.

The turning point arrived halfway through when the Nats had scored two runs to cut the deficit to 3-2.

Tanner Roark was unable get through the next half-inning, and the Red Sox put the game away with six runs on six hits in a game-breaking rally.

Manager Davey Martinez said the Nationals need the starting pitchers to give more than that to keep the club in the game. The Nats had rallied against Red Sox starter Brian Johnson in the fourth on RBI singles from Mark Reynolds and Roark.

But then the Nats gave it all back. J.D. Martinez smacked a two-run single and Xander Bogaerts put the Red Sox up big with another three-run shot in the six-run onslaught.

"It's hard to play from behind. Our starting pitching right now is not giving our offense a chance," Martinez said. "When we do try to make a run and come back, we've got to have shutdown innings. That's not happening. In May, we were 20-9. Our starting pitching was really good. For some reason, we're not doing that. I think it's a sense of having some kind of accountability and starting to make pitches. Giving up 0-2 homers, 1-2 homers, that's not good. We've got to clean that up."

With the team down 9-2, Martinez elected to ride Roark for seven innings, even letting the veteran hit for himself in the sixth after Pedro Severino had launched another solo homer - the fourth for the club in the series - to cut the deficit to 9-3 with no outs.

Why not go to a pinch-hitter at that point, or was the six-run deficit too much to overcome? Martinez said his eye was on a tired corps of relievers and an 11 a.m. game Wednesday.

"Our bullpen was ... for me, I've got to think about tomorrow," Martinez said. "(Kelvin) Herrera needed a day off yesterday. These guys would've been able to pitch if we were tied or within a run or so. But down that many runs, we've got an early game tomorrow. So we basically only had two guys really, and we used them both today."

Roark (3-10) went seven innings, allowing nine runs on 10 hits.

What might be even more frustrating for the veteran hurler is that afterwards he said he felt good about his stuff heading into the start.

"That's the best I've felt in a long time," Roark said. "So other than two pitches, I feel like they base hit me to death. What are you going to do?

"Yeah, it's very frustrating. I think like all my stuff was down. Velocity was good. Location was good. I don't know. Yeah, it's definitely frustrating."

The painful sixth inning included a string of five consecutive singles for the Red Sox and then the monster three-run homer by Bogaerts. Roark walked the next batter and got a 5-4-3 double play to end rough frame. He then managed a pair of three-up, three-down innings to wrap up his night. Unfortunately, the damage was done.

Martinez said the starting pitching needs to be better, but also he went back to emphasizing the fundamentals, the small things the Nats need to be doing better in order to succeed.

"Hey, make better choices, Martinez said. "Think about what's going on. Think about better situations, and let's move forward. I talked to Tanner during the game when he came out. He actually threw the ball pretty well. Just, at certain times, he made bad pitches. I told him, I said, 'Look, sometimes it's better giving away one run on a base hit to right than giving up three runs.' Think about it. One run, we're still in the ballgame. Three runs, we've got to come back.

"We've got to scratch and claw. You don't want to give up any, I get it. But in certain situations, it's better off just trying to get a ground ball. Try to get a fly ball to right field. Things like that, we've got to get better at."

The Nats' best chance to climb back in on offense arrived in the fifth when they loaded the bases on two singles and a walk. But facing reliever Heath Hembree with two outs, Michael A. Taylor struck out.

The Nats left nine men on base, and managed only four runs. A Brian Goodwin solo shot in the ninth finished off the scoring.

Reynolds, who went 2-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI, acknowledged that when the clutch hit doesn't arrive in a losing skid, the team can squeeze their bats a bit to try to find a way out.

"Yeah when you get in these funks, people start pressing and they start trying to hit a six-run homer with nobody on base," Reynolds said. "And I've seen it for a long time. Teams do this. This is one of the more talented teams I've ever been on and everyone goes through it.

"The good thing is we're not halfway through the season yet, but we've got a lot of baseball left. I know it, everyone says it, but we do. We have a lot of games. Anything can happen and I'm confident with the people in this room that we'll be just fine."

Matt Adams could be back after completing a rehab game Tuesday night for Double-A Harrisburg. He went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts.

Martinez said the Nationals need the starters now to stay away from the big inning so that his offense has a shot to win the game. Down by six or seven runs makes that very difficult to remedy.

"If these guys would give our lineup a chance, we'll start winning some games because we are playing better," Martinez said. "I see that. We came back and scored two runs, and the energy was great. We go back out there, and they come back and score six runs, and everything just goes dormant again. They didn't quit, but here we go, scratching and clawing again, trying to get back in the game, and it's tough. It's tough for the boys."