Batista's gamble is costly

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As he took off from first base and saw Felipe Lopez's drive roll to the wall in right-center, Tony Batista had only one thought on his mind: score.

In the third-base coaching box, Tim Tolman had a different thought. Don't take a chance here, not with his club trailing by three runs in the sixth inning.

So Tolman put up the stop sign, perhaps a little late, and Batista ran right through it. He wound up in the middle of a bang-bang play at the plate, called out by umpire Brian Runge even though replays appeared to show his foot beating catcher Ronnie Paulino's tag by a split second.

No matter. Batista was ruled out, and the Washington Nationals missed a golden opportunity in what ultimately proved to be a 7-6 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

"Those are the types of things we can't afford," Nationals manager Manny Acta said after his team fell to 2-5 on the homestand. "We can't afford to be making those kind of mistakes."

There were plenty of other problem areas in Washington's third straight loss.

Left-hander Mike Bacsik had some rare trouble throwing strikes and walked a season-high five batters in his worst outing since joining the rotation.

"That's the frustrating thing tonight: Everybody did their job," said Bacsik (1-2), who was battling a stomach illness. "We played good defense. We hit the ball. We scored runs. If I just go out and give us a halfway decent effort, we got ourselves a win tonight."

The Nationals' lineup produced late, but for five innings it was mostly stymied by Pittsburgh right-hander Shawn Chacon.

Then there was that pesky little problem Washington is having getting opposing pitchers out. Chacon continued the trend, picking up two singles and making opposing pitchers 7-for-15 with two walks against the Nationals over the last seven games.