Scherzer rebounds nicely after tough first inning

This has been an unusual start to the season for right-hander Max Scherzer.

Scherzer fell to 1-4 as the Cardinals dropped the Nationals 5-1 Wednesday night despite seven innings of work and only three runs allowed.

José Martínez's two-run single highlighted the Cards' early three-run outburst in the first that set the tone.

Scherzer allowed three runs in that inning, then fired six shutout frames to keep his club within striking distance. In the opening inning, his defense did not help, as Carter Kieboom was unable to record an out on a grounder and Victor Robles could not make the catch on a Marcell Ozuna fly ball in front of him in right field.

"It's been frustrating, and I'm sure it's frustrating for Max, too," said Nats manager Davey Martinez. "But true to form, he's a competitor. First inning, we should have caught a ball in right field, Kieboom got caught up with the runner, backed up and should have just come and gotten the ball. But Max didn't say one word about it. He went out there and pitched incredibly after that. So he kept us in the ballgame."

Unfortunately, the Nats could muster only one run in losing for the sixth time in their last seven outings. But even more unusual is the Nats are not winning when Scherzer pitches. He is now 1-6 this season.

"Yeah, but we all make mistakes," Scherzer said of those early fielding miscues. "I make mistakes. I'm not here to worry about other people's mistakes. If you do, that's a losing mentality. You just got to go out there and compete. And do everything you can to win the ball game. Unfortunately, tonight they made more winning plays than we did. And it's frustrating when you lose."

Scherzer was hovering around 100 pitches in the seventh with the dangerous Paul Goldschmidt up. There were two men on and one away, his team down just 3-1. Scherzer reared back and fired a 97 mph pitch to get Goldschmidt to swing strike three.

"Big situation. (I had) thrown him a lot of off-speed pitches," Scherzer said. "Was trying to see if I could get one more slider, if I could get a big out, a double play maybe on a slider, if I could get him to roll over. He was battling that pitch and just went back to the fastball and gave it everything I got.

"So I was able to get a big strikeout in that situation and then fortunately (Paul) DeJong was able to pop up a fastball. So that was a big spot in the game and I was glad I was able to get through it."

Martinez knew Scherzer wanted to try to finish the seventh inning.

"You watch him, and he was on," Martinez said. "He understands that at that particular moment, that's his game. I could've went out there and talked to him about it, but I probably wouldn't have gotten a nice answer. We have this thing where he looks at me and I know what's going on. And I said, hey this is his game. He's got it. If he gives up a run there, he's done. But he's the guy you want out there in those moments."

Scherzer struck out eight batters to reach 2,511 punchouts in his career, passing Christy Mathewson for 24th on baseball's all-time strikeout list. But this was not the night to congratulate Scherzer on another milestone. He has said before winning is the milestone he cares about the most.

"This is Major League Baseball. You've got to continue to look forward. You can't get caught up in anything else that doing your job," Scherzer said. "You have to go forward. You have to continue to do your job, and my job is to go out there and pitch as well as I can deep in ballgames and do everything I can do to be successful. Tonight, I thought I gave the team a chance to win. That's all I can ask for, for myself."

Howie Kendrick had three hits in the game. Afterward, he talked about wishing the Nats had given Scherzer some more run support early in the game.

"It's rough for all of us because he's giving us a chance to win," Kendrick said. "It's not like we are losing by a ton of runs. I think he gave up, what, three tonight? That was it. Usually, we put more runs on the board."

With the loss, Scherzer and Aníbal Sánchez have combined for a 1-8 record. That mark is the best example of the struggles the Nats have gone through their first 29 games of the season.