The Washington Nationals will try to carry over their performance late in a loss on Thursday when they open a three-game series against the visiting Miami Marlins on Friday night.
Washington dropped its fifth straight game — 4-3 to the New York Mets — but they did generate some late offense, scoring three runs in the ninth. The Nationals got four hits in the inning and ended the game with the tying run on third base. It was just the second time in eight games they scored three runs.
June has been a brutal month for Washington offensively. The Washington Post noted that — before Thursday’s game — the Nationals had scored 15 runs in their nine June games while the Mets had hit 23 home runs this month.
Before its ninth-inning rally, Washington had gone 22 innings without scoring a run.
“I loved the at-bats that last inning,” manager Dave Martinez said. “So we’ve got to take that, come back tomorrow and start those at-bats from the first inning on. Those at-bats were great.”
Washington has a chance to get well with its next seven games being at home against the Marlins and the Colorado Rockies, who have the majors’ worst record.
Nationals left-hander Mitchell Parker (4-6, 4.44 ERA) opposes Marlins right-hander Edward Cabrera (2-2, 3.99) in the opener.
Parker is 0-3 with a 4.62 ERA in his past three starts, though he was solid his last time out, allowing two runs (one earned) on four hits over six innings against the Texas Rangers. He struck out five without a walk in the loss.
“Back to the early contact,” Parker said. “Not wasting a lot of pitches. Forcing them to kind of hit our pitch instead of them hitting the pitch they want. … We still have some stuff to work on, but it’s a step in the right direction.”
Parker is 1-0 with a 2.01 ERA in four career starts versus the Marlins.
Cabrera ended May with a pair of outings in which he threw 5 2/3 innings of shutout baseball against both the Angels and Giants in posting back-to-back wins. In his last start, he allowed three runs (one earned) on six hits in four innings of a loss to the Tampa Bay Rays.
“They created traffic on him. (Cabrera) had his back to the wall but made some pitches and got out of it (in the third,)” manager Clayton McCullough said. “While the pitch count was low, he got stressed through four.”
The 27-year-old Cabrera, whose name has come up in various trade scenarios, is 2-3 with a 3.89 ERA in seven starts against the Nationals.
Miami comes in having lost three of four and eight of 10. That includes losing two of three to the Pittsburgh Pirates, who took the finale 5-2 on Wednesday. The Marlins got two hits each from rookie Heriberto Hernandez, Nick Fortes and Connor Norby. Hernandez connected on his first career home run.
Hernandez, 25, is 10-for-24 (.417) with three runs and three RBIs in nine games.
“He swung the bat well in big league camp, and I think that there’s at-bat quality there,” McCullough said of Hernandez. “Bert has some power, and he’s showing some extra hitability.”
–Field Level Media
