MIAMI -- The second-half Marlins look different than the club that set a record for one-run wins earlier this season. That’s in part because Miami is having more trouble knocking out opponents’ starters earlier in the game. But the team is also struggling to gain, and then carry through, that late-inning momentum that has earned them 31 comeback wins this season.

After going hitless through 5 1/3 innings -- with just two knocks in the sixth -- Miami raked five straight hits to start the seventh inning on Friday night. That was the only inning in which the Marlins scored, though, as they fell, 7-4, to the Nationals at loanDepot park. It marked Miami’s first loss to Washington this year, moving to 6-1 in the season series.

“It’s not from lack of trying, it's not for lack of effort, it's not for lack of urgency, it's not for lack of game planning,” manager Skip Schumaker said. “We have to execute, and we're just not executing right now. That's part of the game; we have to execute the game plan. All that stuff is ready for us, the preparation is there. It's just now we just got to execute out there on the field. And again, we're really good getting to the relievers, it feels like, but lately attacking that starter and getting to the starter has been hurting us definitely in the second half.”

The trouble coming back -- and pulling ahead early -- has damaged the Marlins (65-64) of late. Their last come-from-behind win was almost two weeks ago, on Aug. 13 vs. the Yankees. They’ve scored just 11 runs over their past six games and are hitting .171 (6-for-35) with runners in scoring position over that same stretch.

With Friday’s loss, the Marlins dropped to 2 1/2 games behind the Cubs (67-61) for the third National League Wild Card spot, and they trail the Giants (66-62) and Reds (67-63) by 1 1/2 games.

If a tiebreaker is needed to determine a Wild Card spot, it first goes to head-to-head matchups, then to divisional records. Miami won its season series over Arizona (4-2) and Chicago (4-2) and split its series with San Francisco (3-3) and Cincinnati (3-3).

Until Carter Kieboom hit a two-run homer off Braxton Garrett, who hung a 77.6 mph curveball in the middle of the zone, in the top of the sixth inning, Garrett and Nationals starter Joan Adon were dueling. While Adon allowed two baserunners -- on an error and a hit-by-pitch -- through five innings, Garrett had given up just one run on four hits. And despite that one bad pitch to Kieboom, Garrett still walked away with his seventh quality start of the season, with three runs allowed over six innings.

“He, honestly, threw one bad curveball, and that cost him a couple runs,” Schumaker said. “But otherwise, Braxton -- it's what he needed to do: quality start to win a game. And we just couldn't get anything going against their starter. And [Adon], he pitched a great game, attacked us, but we're better than that. I know we're better than that. And we have to … figure out that starter.”

The Marlins have scored just 51 runs in the first inning and 47 runs in the second inning this season, compared to 60 runs in the seventh inning and 72 runs in the eighth. While those numbers don’t seem drastically different, they still speak to a troubling trend that continued vs. the Nationals.

“We keep studying all these pitchers -- I think things are coming better for the starters [against us and] better for us against relievers,” said Jesús Sánchez, whose two-run triple put the Marlins on the board in the seventh inning, via team interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “We're studying all these pitchers. And you have to continue trying to break that one in the beginning of the game.”

“We've had many comeback wins because we've gotten to the back-end bullpens,” Schumaker said. “But that means we haven't gotten to the starter, when you have those come-from-behind wins. So as great as that is to get four ... in the bottom of the seventh, we have to get to the starter. So that's going to be the mission, not that we haven't been trying before. … That's kind of the mission going forward: How do we attack that starter, score first and hold the lead?”