Ho hum…just another one-run loss for the #Nats

The Washington Nationals find new ways to lose with a lack of execution with a man on 3rd base and one-out in a walk-off situation and Mark Reynolds at the plate and he struck out. In the same situation, Jose Lobaton cashed in with the productive out sacrifice fly in a 2-strike count in the 11th inning with the game winner for the Mets. Max Scherzer started this game and went 7-innings and set a record for strikeouts in a season for the Nationals and finished with 290 strikeouts on this night with possibly two more starts to go for 2018. The Nationals record in extra inning games went to 4-10 and 18-24 in one-run games.

The Nationals battled back in this game twice to tie up the game and had their chances to win this game. Where have you heard that line before? It’s like the scratched vinyl LP that just repeats. Lack of execution, walks give up, one-run loss.

“We had opportunities to win the game,” manager Dave Martinez said.

With this loss, the Nationals fell back to one game over .500, and wasted some very good efforts tonight by several players. Anthony Rendon led the offense with his 100th career home run and he had 3 RBIs on the night, and Ryan Zimmerman had 3-hits in the game and was stranded all 3 times. Matt Wieters and Bryce Harper stranded 4-runners each, but Harper hit a flyball to the wall that looked like a “sure thing” 3-run home run and had a hit in the game. In the 11th inning, Harper was ejected for arguing with the home plate umpire. Harper was right that the umpire made a mistake in a 2-strike count and was called out for a key strikeout.

The teenager, Juan Soto, put a blown save on the Mets bullpen with a game tying RBI double with two outs. It was good to see Soto and also the youngster Victor Robles contribute in this game.

 

This entry was posted in Recap. Bookmark the permalink.