Nats hoping to change September luck after sixth straight loss

WASHINGTON -- When the calendar turned to September, the Nationals didn’t want to leave their success from August behind. But four games into the new month, they are searching for their first win.

The Nats dropped the series opener against the Mets, 11-5, bringing their losing skid to six on Tuesday night at Nats Park. This, after going 17-11 in August, including a stretch of 11 wins in 14 games.

“Overall, if you look at our starting pitching, they’re going four-plus innings,” said manager Dave Martinez. “When we get five-plus, six innings, we’re usually pretty good. I think that’s key, and I said it all the time -- starting pitching, defense, baserunning, they’re going to win you games consistently. And we did that for quite a while.”

Washington has been outscored, 49-20, in their past six games. It has allowed 11 runs in two of its last three contests, to the Marlins and Mets.

On Tuesday, Patrick Corbin surrendered a season-high eight runs in four innings. The southpaw gave up an early lead with a four-run first inning, including a 419-foot homer to Francisco Alvarez, culminating in seven hits, one walk, two strikeouts and three home runs across 83 pitches.

“There’s some hitters that you want to get up, you need to throw up -- but not all of them,” Martinez said. “If he keeps the sinker down and away -- he didn’t throw very many changeups today -- the combination of those two, you’re going to get in trouble. Tonight, everything was up.”

As the Nats' starting pitchers have struggled to go deep into games as of late, Corbin had consistently stayed on the mound throughout the season. He ranks 10th in the National League in innings pitched. But Tuesday was his shortest start since throwing three frames on Opening Day, and only the second time this year he did not complete five innings.

Martinez contemplated making the call to the bullpen after the third inning, but he said Corbin was “adamant” about pitching the fourth.

“Everything just seemed a little bit off today,” Corbin said. “I felt all right, but it just seemed like any pitch today, they hit hard or had some tough at-bats on some good pitches. Kind of worked some counts and were able to put the ball out of the ballpark tonight. Overall, just really frustrating. I look forward to my bullpen and maybe just [focusing] on location.”

While the Nationals dropped to 19-51 when their opponents score first, they are 43-27 when they get on the board first. Early run support was just as much of an emphasis for Martinez after the Nats scored in the first frame off a Joey Meneses RBI single, but put up zeros until the eighth. By the time they plated four in an eighth-inning rally, the deficit already was too insurmountable. Washington is 12-64 on the season when trailing after the sixth frame and 5-70 when behind after the eighth.

“After the seventh inning, we’re pretty good at scoring runs, but we’ve got to get some runs early in the game,” Martinez said. “Especially when you’re down already, 4-0, to me, that’s the big key. When you’re in these games and you all of a sudden, you go down in the first inning, it sucks the air out of you.

“It really does. You’re playing comeback. We’ve got to get through those first couple innings and put up some runs early and often and then go from there.”

The Nats will face the Mets for the final time this season, before having an off-day Thursday ahead of hosting the 84-win Dodgers this weekend.

“Got to come back tomorrow and regroup,” Martinez said. “Try to go 1-0 tomorrow and get out of this little funk here.”