A fundamentally frustrating loss
The Nationals failed to convert on countless opportunities during today's 12-inning game, upsetting manager Blake Butera
Every day, win or loss, high-scoring or low-scoring, clean or sloppy, Blake Butera and his coaching staff meet with Nationals players to dissect their previous game. They look at what went well. They look at what didn’t go well. They try to correct mistakes so they don’t happen again.
When they gather at Nationals Park on Sunday morning to go over tonight’s 7-6, 12-inning loss to the Giants, they’re going to get an earful from their young manager.
“There’s a lot to take away from that game that we’re going to unpack as a team tomorrow,” Butera said.
A game that saw the Nats jump out to a 5-1 lead after two innings, then give that lead back behind a pitching staff that lost all sense of the word “efficient,” then rally to tie things up again with two outs in the ninth, ultimately was lost three innings later despite countless opportunities to emerge victorious.
What defined those missed opportunities? Bad baserunning. Bad bunting. Bad swing decisions. Bad fundamental baseball.
“I thought we should’ve won that game,” Butera said after watching his team fall to 9-12, including an unfathomable 1-7 at home. “We just didn’t execute. That’s what it came down to.”
The lack of execution was stunning, and it came from a number of players in a number of situations. And for the most part, they fell into the following categories …
