Nats tie game in ninth, but lose in the tenth
Recommended Stories
Give it up to the LaRoche brothers. Adam had a two-run double in top of the 10th to help Pittsburgh to an 8-5 win. Meanwhile, younger brother Andy hit his second home run of the season — a two-run shot in third.All-Star PerformancePirates OF Brandon Moss hit a two-run double in the top of the first inning to help his team to an early 3-0 lead. Finished 2-for-5 after adding RBI hit in the 10th. Only Pittsburgh batter to record more than one hit on the evening. Now has multi-hit games in each of his last six starts.OverlookedSay what you will about the Nats’ struggling bullpen. But 39-year-old Ron Villone has been one addition that has worked well. He pitched two more scoreless innings on Tuesday, giving him eight so far since recall from Triple-A Syracuse.Oops!The Nats harp on pitchers not walking batters. Starter Shairon Martis has been up and down in 2009, three times walking four batters in a game. Walked two Pirates during the three-run first inning. Also charged with two wild pitches in six innings.
From the Dugout» On Monday, Nats manager Manny Acta promised more personnel changes in the bullpen. Team finally made one after the game – but not at the cost of another pitcher’s job. Instead, Jason Bergmann returns from Triple-A Syracuse as the eighth member of the bullpen.» John Russell’s Pirates now have an 18-21 record. They have won four in a row and six of eight since snapping an eight-game losing streak on May 12. Pittsburgh has hit a home run in each game of its current winning streak.
There were no blown leads this time. The Nationals never had one. But it was also too much to expect a struggling bullpen to hold on for four full innings.
“We can’t be handcuffed having a player [on the 25-man roster] that [is] day-to-day and not being able to use him,” said Nats manager Manny Acta. “We’ll handle it the best way possible until he’s 100 percent.”» The club also announced that rookie LHP Ross Detwiler has earned another start after Monday’s five-inning, two-earned run outing vs. the Pirates. He will start Saturday night against the Orioles. » After Tuesday’s loss, the Nats designated SS Alex Cintron for assignment. He will become a free agent and can sign with any other team. While he waits to hear about other opportunities from his agent, Cintron said he might return home to Puerto Rico to work out.
“Nice weather,” Cintron said with a smile. “I’m going to have something. Right now, there are a lot of infielders having a tough time. Either in big leagues or maybe Triple-A, whatever. I just want to play.” » In place of Dukes and Cintron, the Nats recalled OF Justin Maxwell and righthanded reliever Jason Bergmann from Triple-A Syracuse. Acta said Maxwell will split time in center with Willie Harris. Bergmann will be the eighth pitcher in the bullpen and be used in middle relief.
“Because we nee it,” Acta said. “We certainly need another arm back there. Bergmann has pitched well enough down there in Triple-A and he’s been up here [before]. He’s going to come over here and try to help us out.”» After not drawing a walk in his first 166 plate appearances of the season, SS Cristian Guzman drew his second in as many games on Tuesday night.» “I believe this is like the 10th game in a row where we score five or more runs and we’re 1-9,” Acta said after the game. “That tells you the story right there.”» Adam Dunn homered in the fourth – a solo shot for his 12th of the season. He also walked twice.» Ryan Zimmerman reached base for the 37th game in a row. He bunted for a hit in the sixth — an ugly blooper that found space between the mound and third base — and then drew walks in the seventh and ninth innings.» The sixth inning was Washington’s biggest offensive frame of the night. With first-and-second and no out in the sixth Willie Harris had a two-out hit. Then came the big play – a two-out triple by Anderson Hernandez (2-for-4, RBI, run scored) that brought Harris home from first and trimmed the deficit to 5-3. Wil Nieves (2-for-5) followed with an RBI single of his own to center.
In the end, they were left with another demoralizing loss — this time 8-5 in 10 innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday night at Nationals Park.
Adam LaRoche knocked home two runs with a double in the top of the 10th inning and teammate Brandon Moss added an RBI single. But the hows and whys of another defeat don’t really matter all that much anymore — just that those losses continue to pile up at an alarming rate.
Make it six in a row for Washington (11-27), whose battered bullpen held off the Pirates (18-21) in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, but could do no more. Joe Beimel gave up the winning runs in his second inning of work. The Nats had rallied from a 5-0 deficit after three innings, scoring a run in the fourth and three more in the sixth. But they let a few good chances to win slip away, too. Runners were left at first and second with two outs in the seventh. An Austin Kearns pinch-hit bid with a runner at third in the bottom of the eighth was caught at the base of the wall in left.
And while Washington finally tied the game at 5 in the bottom of the ninth on a triple by Nick Johnson and a wild pitch by Pittsburgh reliever Sean Burnett, Ryan Zimmerman was left at second base with one out. Adam Dunn struck out swinging and one batter later, Willie Harris, looking for a fastball he could drive, never got one. Instead, he struck out looking on a fourth consecutive slider from reliever Tom Gorzelanny.
“We had a chance to win the game right there,” said Harris, who had already produced a two-out RBI single in the three-run sixth inning. “And now I’ve got to think about that for tonight and until I can get another opportunity to do it again.”
That set up the kind of loss the Nats have perfected this season. A leadoff single by Freddy Sanchez, a sacrifice and then an intentional walk set up Adam LaRoche’s double. The Pirates had scored three runs in the first inning off Nats starting pitcher Shairon Martis and added two more on an Andy LaRoche home run in the third. But they didn’t get another hit until the 10th, allowing Washington back into the game.
“Everybody knows the situation that we’re in with our bullpen. You don’t want to get into a battle of the bullpens with anybody right now the way we are,” said Nats manager Manny Acta. “We felt good that we had those three scoreless innings. But still — we know that we’re struggling and we needed to finish the game right there and we couldn’t come up with that big hit.”
Martis struggled from the start. He allowed a leadoff double to Nyjer Morgan in the top of the first and the inning only got worse from there. A single, a double, two walks and a wild pitch later Pittsburgh had a 3-0 lead and Martis had thrown 31 pitches. But he finally settled down, allowing just two more hits and no walks after that frame. Martis retired the final 10 batters he faced.
