Nats' bats come alive with big sixth inning to take finale

ATLANTA -- One bad inning doomed Washington in Saturday's loss to the Braves. In the Nationals’ 6-2 comeback victory on Sunday at Truist Park, which snapped the team’s six-game losing streak, they did not let another ruin their chances.

“It was a good win, a good way to leave Atlanta,” manager Dave Martinez said. “Boys played well. Trevor [Williams] settled down and gave some good five innings and then [Carl] Edwards [Jr.], [Kyle] Finnegan and [Hunter] Harvey closed the game down.”

With Ronald Acuña Jr. on first after a first-inning single, Williams threw a fastball over the plate to Atlanta’s Matt Olson, who hit it into the right-field stands to give the Braves a 2-0 lead. It was the 13th homer Williams has allowed this year, which is tied for third in the National League. The 31-year-old settled in from there, despite giving up five hits in the last four innings, and escaped two jams.

With two outs in the second, Orlando Arcia and Michael Harris II hit back-to-back singles. But Williams allowed no runs, striking out Acuña with a 93-mph fastball on a full count. Williams did it again two innings later, this time with the bases loaded after walking Arcia. The right-hander was able to avoid trouble by forcing a pop out from Harris and an Acuña forceout to end the inning.

“That was a big moment of the game right there, but he's done it before,” Martinez said. “We got a lot of confidence in him. He gives up runs but doesn’t get rattled, gets back in it and keeps us in the ballgame. Today we were able to score some runs for him.”

As opposed to Saturday’s performance, when the Nationals couldn’t score despite their pitchers allowing just one run in the final six innings, their offense came prepared in the series finale.

Washington seized control in the sixth by scoring five runs, which started with Joey Meneses’ RBI single. Luis García hit a double, then advanced to third after a wild pitch, which set the stage for Meneses' run-scoring hit to left field to tie the game.

Then the home-run barrage began.

Jeimer Candelario knocked his eighth homer of the season to right field to give the Nationals the lead. Three at-bats later, Dominic Smith hit the longest home run of his career with a 444-foot two-run blast to right-center field.

“When I hit it, it felt like a golf ball,” said Smith, who recorded his second homer of the year. “And I knew I got it. But it was a great swing. It's something that I know that's inside of me. I just got to consistently bring it out.”

The Nationals have to showcase it, too. It was the team’s first multihomer game in almost a week. During the losing streak, they averaged 2.6 runs per game, but Washington finally broke through and will look to do it consistently.

“Those guys, if they start swinging like that in the middle of the lineup, we can do some good things,” Martinez said.

As for Williams, he got back on track after struggling against the Phillies in his last start. Although he only generated five whiffs with his fastball, which maxed out at 93 mph, he used it to put away six batters. He logged six strikeouts, which tied his season high set in his last outing.

“It's nice going third or fourth during a series, so you kind of get a look at what they're doing,” Williams said. “They were coming into this series hot, and they still are hot, so it was something that we were able to kind of attack the edges with [the] fastball and its spin. Thankfully, the defense made some great plays behind us, especially when we had runners on.”

One of those big defensive plays came from center fielder Alex Call, who robbed Harris of a homer with a leaping grab at the left-center-field wall in the sixth. The Nationals displayed grit during the rough stretch and hope to keep the momentum going.

“This team is relentless,” Williams said. “This team is unbreakable, and we've been in every game. It's just a matter of we're going to snap out of it soon. Today, hopefully, we can carry that over into our off-day to Houston and come ready to play.”