Little mistakes add up in loss

It’s the little things that drive managers crazy.

They can live with the three-run homers and the three-hit shutouts pitched against them. They lose sleep, though, over the mental mistakes that lead to runs and the poor at-bats that kill rallies.

And when those little things compound themselves over the course of five straight games — all of them close losses — they tend to start soul-searching and looking for answers.

Manny Acta doesn’t know what else he can do right now. After his Washington Nationals lost 10-7 last night to the Florida Marlins, extending their losing streak to five, the manager talked about all the little mistakes his team has been making.

“I address that every day,” Acta said. “We don’t let it go by. We address it. But we’ve still got to get it done. They’ve got to do it.”

Washington (3-5) didn’t do it last night in its return to Nationals Park. Acta’s squad got a poor pitching performance from Tim Redding (seven runs, one earned, over four innings) as well as poor defense (two errors) and poor clutch hitting (11 men left on base).

“At least it’s early,” second baseman Ronnie Belliard said. “I prefer it happen now than later in the year. I think we’re playing good baseball. It’s just when you make mistakes here in the big leagues, they make you pay.”

With the hubbub of Opening Night long forgotten, the Nationals last night got their first taste of weeknight baseball on South Capitol Street. The combination of temperatures in the 40s, a weak-drawing opponent and the NCAA men’s basketball championship going on simultaneously left team officials expecting perhaps the smallest crowd of the season.

As it turns out, the gathering of 20,487 — slightly less than one-half of the park’s capacity — was larger than team president Stan Kasten expected.

“I didn’t think it would be this many,” Kasten said. “Really, with this weather? It’s cold out there. For a cold night in April, this is great.”

Those who turned out in huddled masses were treated to a ragged affair right from the start.

Austin Kearns seemed to take a poor route to Hanley Ramirez’s leadoff drive to deep right field (it turned into a double), and center fielder Lastings Milledge dropped Dan Uggla’s subsequent routine fly ball, drawing groans from the crowd.

“I missed it,” Milledge said. “I kind of took my eye off it at the last second.”

Milledge did atone for his defensive gaffe at the plate in the first, doubling down the left-field to score Cristian Guzman (who led off with a triple) and tie the game at 1-1.

It didn’t stay that way for long. Redding, coming off a brilliant one-hit performance in his season debut last week in Philadelphia, never found his groove in his second outing. Particularly roughed up by the bottom of the Marlins’ lineup — the Nos. 6-9 hitters combined for four hits, two RBI and five runs in the first three innings alone — Redding quickly fell into a deep hole.

He wasn’t aided by his defense. Guzman committed a throwing error on Jorge Cantu’s third-inning grounder, prolonging an inning in which five unearned runs ultimately scored. But Redding didn’t help himself, either, allowing a two-out, two-run double to No. 8 hitter Alfredo Amezaga on a 2-2 count with the opposing pitcher on deck.

“If you want to talk about an error, talk about the 2-2 pitch to Amezaga with first base open and two outs,” Redding said. “That’s the biggest error of the game. That cost us the game. That’s on my shoulders.”

Ramirez’s subsequent three-run homer made it 7-3.

The Nationals tried to rally their way back into it and drew to within a run thanks to a three-run fourth that featured a two-run single by Guzman and an RBI base hit by Milledge.

But as has already been the case countless times this season, they were done in by an inability to come through with runners in scoring position.

Washington loaded the bases in both the seventh and eighth innings yet managed to score only one run during that span, when Guzman roped his second triple of the night and scored on Milledge’s sacrifice fly in the eighth.

Otherwise, the Nationals couldn’t produce that one key hit when it counted. Belliard popped out and Aaron Boone flied out in the seventh, and Paul Lo Duca grounded into a forceout in the eighth, representing the ninth time in eight games this season that Washington has left the bases loaded.

Considering the Nationals have lost five in a row by a total of nine runs, it’s not farfetched to wonder whether this team could be 8-0 this morning instead of 3-5 had it only come up with one more clutch hit a game.

“It depends the way you look at it,” Acta said. “Losing every day by one run is not a good sign. It’s a sign sometimes of bad clubs because it means that you made an error, whether it’s a physical or a mental error, during the ballgame that helped you lose the ballgame by one. Usually that’s not a good sign.”

SEEN AND HEARD AT NATIONALS PARK

Felipe Lopez was sitting at his locker before yesterday’s game, typing on his laptop, when he suddenly jumped out of his seat. A mouse had come scampering in and burrowed itself in Lopez’s locker. A mad scrum ensued as players tried to corral the critter, with players alternating between determined hunters and frightened schoolgirls. Finally, a clubhouse attendant trapped the mouse in a mail crate and took it away. Said Lopez: “RFK coming back, baby!”

— Mark Zuckerman

OVERHEARD

“We don’t have enough ice back home.”

— Manny Acta when asked whether he played hockey growing up in the Dominican Republic

TOMORROW’S GAME

Marlins LHP Scott Olsen Record, ERA: 0-0, 6.00

Nationals RHP Jason Bergmann Record, ERA: 0-0, 8.44

Time: 7:10 p.m. TV: MASN HD. Radio: AM-1500, FM-107.7.