More from clubhouse with A. Adams, Martinez and Zimmerman

Nationals reliever Austin L. Adams was unable to throw strikes in the 10th inning Saturday against Diamondbacks hitters Jarrod Dyson and A.J. Pollock. He had trouble finding the zone with his slider, and ended up walking both players.

"It's one of my pitches I use (a lot)," Adams said. "I throw more strikes with my slider than my fastball. I'm trying to induce a ground ball there. All it takes is for him to swing. It completely changes if I'm throwing more strikes."

Adams said without the weapon of throwing strikes with the slider, he was unable to get ahead of hitters and was put in a difficult position.

"Because now he's on the aggressive," Adams explained. "Instead of saying, 'Hey, he's not going to beat me throwing a strike or he has to show me he's going to throw a strike'. So he's definitely more on the defensive there (if I deliver a strike). That's completely on me. I need to do a better job of throwing strikes."

The two walks helped Arizona score the go-ahead run in the 10th in a 4-3 Nationals loss.

* Nationals manager Davey Martinez said one reason he decided to go to the bullpen in the sixth inning to replace right-handed starter Jeremy Hellickson was because he was concerned about Arizona hitters seeing him for the third time around the order.

"You think about that," Martinez said. "Some guys, third time around, tend to for unknown reasons (struggle) - they're cruising and something happens. Like I told Jeremy, I said, 'Hey, look. You kept us in the game. We got a chance to win. We will win this game.' "

Hellickson felt he got off to a very good start and was not laboring early. He tossed only 57 pitches to record 16 outs.

"I felt good," Hellickson said. "I thought I got some early quick outs. I was getting ahead, let my defense play."

The one hitter that Hellickson had difficulty putting away was David Peralta, who hit a pair of home runs. Those two solo shots turned out to be the only runs he allowed. Peralta was a teammate of Hellickson in 2015 with the Diamondbacks.

"First one was a little hanger" Hellickson said. "Not terrible but ... he's probably one of the most underrated players in this league. Played with him for a year and he's good. So I can't make that mistake. Same with the second one, just tried to keep it in on him and not let him go that way again. Just got too much plate with the cutter."

Hellickson reiterated his game plan going in to each start. He now has a 4.11 ERA over 15 1/3 innings in three games this season.

"That's what I got to do: get ahead with everything," Hellickson said. "I'm not going to strike a ton of guys out so I got to get guys out in the zone, get weak contact. I thought I did a good job of that today."

* More from Martinez and first baseman Ryan Zimmerman on the tough losses for his club recently.

The Nationals have lost six of their last seven. Martinez said he still sees a lot of positives and told the Nationals that during his postgame meeting with the entire team in the clubhouse.

"I love the way you guys are playing the game," Martinez said of the talk. "I do. ... At the opportune time, we had the bases loaded with a chance to win the game there (and) we just can't get that hit. Even though Michael (A. Taylor) hit that ball hard, we just can't get that hit. So I'm proud of them. This thing will turn around, I know it will."

Zimmerman spoke about the club's mind set from when things are not going the way they had planned.

"Every day is a new day. Today won't matter tomorrow," Zimmerman said. "Just like yesterday didn't matter today. Come in here every day, positive and trying to win that game today. Obviously, haven't been doing that too well lately. It's still April. Nobody likes to start like this, but we are where we are and now it's our job to keep grinding and keep playing hard dig ourselves out of the hole."