That’s not a winning combination for any team. Young allowed just two hits in seven innings, negating a solid outing from Nats starter John Lannan, and San Diego scored all the runs it needed in a three-run fifth inning en route to a 6-1 victory.

The game wrapped up in a tidy two hours, 36 minutes — barely half the time it took to finish Friday night’s 14-inning epic, an 11-6 Padres win. But tired legs wouldn’t do as an excuse for Nats manager Manny Acta.

“It had nothing to do with [last night],” Acta said. “No whining. No excuses. No weeping. We got beat.”

The Nats (58-97) still have the second-worst record in baseball, bested only by the Seattle Mariners (57-97), who lost again to Oakland on Saturday, 8-7. San Diego is just one spot higher in the overall standings (60-95) as all three teams remain in the mix for the No. 1 pick in next June’s Major League Baseball draft.

Lannan (9-14, 3.86 ERA) had allowed just one hit and a pair of walks entering the fifth inning. But he walked No. 7 hitter Nick Hundley to start that inning. A sacrifice by Young (6-6, 4.11 ERA) and an error by Nats second baseman Emilio Bonifacio gave the Padres the game’s first run. The error was then compounded when Edgar Gonzalez blasted a two-run home run to left field.

Lannan survived that frame and pitched into the seventh. But he threw a fastball over the plate to Young, who smacked a homer of his own to left – the first of his career – to make it 4-0 Padres.

“Chris Young is a big guy. It was a good pitch and he just got a good piece of it,” Lannan said. “And then that pitch to Edgar – it was a slider that stayed up and he got a good piece of that one, too. The walks definitely hurt.”

Moments after Young’s homer, Harris lost a ball in the lights lined right at him by San Diego leadoff batter Will Venable. It happened again in the eighth on a triple by Gonzalez. Third baseman Ryan Zimmerman also committed a throwing error in the inning as the Padres put the game away with two insurance runs to make it 6-0. A two-out double by Aaron Boone in the bottom of the eighth provided Washington’s lone run.

“Have you seen how bright those lights are? It looks like the headlights on a brand-new Lexus – the high-beam,” said Harris, who noted his struggles with the lights at Nationals Park all season, including on a fabulous catch earlier this week against the New York Mets that he never saw. “Once you look up in it you’re done. You’re done. Only thing you can do is just try to battle. Try not to give up on the ball.”

Nats notes


» Prior to the game, the Nationals announced the signing of a two-year player-development contract with the Triple-A International League’s Syracuse Chiefs. Washington’s previous AAA affiliate was the Columbus Clippers, who chose to go with the home-state Cleveland Indians this time around. Syracuse is the Nats’ third AAA affiliate since moving to Washington. The partnership will be formally announced during a press conference Monday in Syracuse.