ST. LOUIS — Rarely has the difference between the Washington Nationals and their opponents over the course of a three-game series been so obvious.
Why did the Nationals just drop three straight over the weekend to the St. Louis Cardinals?
“No big hits for us,” catcher Paul Lo Duca said. “Big hits for them. Bottom line.”
That’s really what separated the teams over a 72-hour period at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals came through, while the Nationals failed to muster any hits of consequence, particularly during yesterday’s 3-0 loss.
And because of it, a Washington club that was beginning to draw attention around the country after opening the season with three wins now heads home having lost four straight.
“We’ve got to go home and play well,” Lo Duca said. “We’re a better ballclub than we played here, and we know that. Including myself, we need to pick it up.”
After dropping a pair of 5-4 games to open the series, the Nationals yesterday squandered a solid pitching effort by left-hander John Lannan, who overcame some early nerves in his 2008 debut to toss 62/3 innings of two-run ball.
The Nationals never threatened against St. Louis starter Kyle Lohse in his seven shutout innings or the three relievers who combined to close out the game and send the crowd of 41,912 home happy.
Washington managed only five singles and never put more than one man on base in an inning against Lohse, a right-hander who was out of a job until late March but has opened the season with 12 scoreless innings.
“He pitched good today, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before,” center fielder Lastings Milledge said. “He pitched a good game today, but we’ve faced better.”
What few scoring opportunities the Nationals gave themselves were quickly wiped out by poor situational hitting, perhaps none more frustrating than Lo Duca’s second-inning at-bat.
With one out and Austin Kearns on third after singling, stealing second and taking third on catcher Yadier Molina’s throwing error, Lo Duca knew what the situation called for.
“It’s automatic,” the career .287 hitter said. “Just hit a ground ball right there and get the run in.”
Instead, Lo Duca hit a weak pop-up to the first baseman, leaving Kearns stranded at third and leaving the veteran catcher visibly upset at himself.
“It was just a terrible at-bat,” he said. “It set the tone for the game. It’s terrible. I’m better than that.”
Felipe Lopez followed with a groundout to second, and Washington’s best scoring opportunity of the day was wasted.
That, though, was nothing new for a Nationals lineup that struggled all weekend to produce in key situations. Washington, which is hitting .244 as a team for the season, went 1-for-9 in the series with a runner on third base.
“We did have a couple of games where we left guys on third with less than two outs,” manager Manny Acta said. “But that will happen over the course of the season, even to the best team. … It’s nothing to panic about.”
It didn’t help matters that the Cardinals took advantage of their opportunities to jump out to an early 2-0 lead against Lannan, who was promoted from Class AAA Columbus late Friday night and admitted to being a bit nervous about the seventh start of his big league career.
Lannan walked leadoff man Brian Barton in the first inning, then served up an RBI double to Rick Ankiel that landed at the base of the center-field wall. Two innings later, Ankiel struck again, launching a solo homer to left-center that earned a curtain call from the St. Louis crowd.
Ankiel, the former pitching phenom who has resurrected his career as an outfielder, went 4-for-12 with two homers, two doubles and four RBI in the series.
If only the Nationals had someone in their lineup hitting with that kind of authority, perhaps the team that boarded its charter to Dulles International Airport last night would have been coming home with a winning record instead of a four-game losing streak.
“It’s not like we’ve been getting our [tails] kicked,” Milledge said. “We’ve been battling. We just fell short the last couple games. This team’s going to battle, and we’re going to keep putting up runs, and hopefully we come out on top.”
New series
FLORIDA MARLINS AT WASHINGTON NATIONALS
Where: Nationals Park
Today: 7:10 p.m., LHP Andrew Miller (0-1, 10.38) vs. RHP Tim Redding (1-0, 0.00), Ch. 20 HD, MASN HD
Wednesday: 7:10 p.m., LHP Scott Olsen (0-0, 6.00) vs. RHP Jason Bergmann (0-0, 8.44), MASN HD
Thursday: 7:10 p.m., LHP Mark Hendrickson (1-1, 6.10) vs. LHP Odalis Perez (0-1, 6.00), MASN HD
Series breakdown: The Nationals get their first look at one of the game’s most promising young lefties tonight when Miller takes the mound for the Marlins. The sixth pick from the 2006 draft was one of the key players Florida received from Detroit in the deal that sent Miguel Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis to the Tigers. And though he had a rough debut last week, Miller remains highly touted. With Cabrera gone, Florida’s lineup doesn’t inspire fear in many opponents, but manager Fredi Gonzalez still has Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla at the top of the order.
— Mark Zuckerman
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