Finding the positives and the negatives in another extra-inning loss
Plenty of good things happened for the Nationals on Friday night, but it's hard to shrug off this 5-4, 11-inning loss to the Braves
ATLANTA – Blake Butera sighed as he contemplated tonight’s 5-4, 11-inning loss to the Braves, his team’s second straight one-run loss to a division opponent, its second extra-inning loss in five days.
“It’s tough. Really tough,” the rookie Nationals manager said. “Just the way these guys battled, competed all night long. Man, obviously against a good team like this, to have them on the ropes like that … this one just hurts.”
Like those previous losses this week, the Nats were in prime position to emerge victorious. They led 4-2 heading to the bottom of the 10th. Then Orlando Ribalta gave up two runs to extend the game into the 11th. Then the bottom of the lineup failed to move the automatic runner up from second base in the top of the inning. Then the bottom of the Braves lineup got its automatic runner home on Chadwick Tromp’s two-out single to center off Paxton Schultz.
We can dissect those final two innings and place blame on the bullpen, but that’s really not what this game was about. Ribalta and Schultz were two of the last men standing in a Nats relief corps that has been used a ton in recent weeks and has proven itself far better than it was during the season’s opening month.
We can complain about the Nationals’ lack of situational hitting, from the inability of Jorbit Vivas, Drew Millas and Nasim Nunez to get Daylen Lile home in the top of the 11th to earlier poor at-bats by Luis García Jr. and Dylan Crews to the team’s woeful 1-for-13 production with runners in scoring position.
