HOUSTON -- The Astros were able to erase a disastrous ninth inning Wednesday night with a rally of their own -- and a little help from the Nationals, who couldn’t turn an inning-ending 6-2-3 double play and wound up watching Houston celebrate a walk-off win.

One night later, the ninth and 10th innings provided all the drama the teams could handle Thursday at Minute Maid Park, with the Nationals scoring three times in the 10th off reliable reliever Phil Maton to avoid a sweep by handing the Astros a 4-1 loss.

Houston, which fell to 0-5 in extra innings, tied the game with two outs in the bottom of the ninth when Yainer Diaz had a pinch-hit, two-strike RBI single on a 99.5 mph fastball from Hunter Harvey. But Maton gave up three soft hits, walked a batter and hit a batter to allow Washington to push three runs across in the 10th.

“Other than the walk and the hit batsman, they didn't hit any of those other three hits hard,” Astros manager Dusty Baker said. “There were two squibbers through the infield and a blooper to left. Sometimes that happens, too. You can’t guide the ball. I’m sure they did guide it -- if it’s over a foot or two or whatever it is, it’s a double-play ball. It was just unfortunate [that] in the 10th nothing went our way.”

Astros starter Cristian Javier held the Nationals to five hits and no runs while striking out two batters with no walks allowed in six innings. He was pretty much matched by Washington starter Mackenzie Gore, who threw 5 2/3 scoreless innings, struck out four batters and allowed four hits and three walks.

Houston closer Ryan Pressly, who gave up three unearned runs in the ninth inning Wednesday -- he made one of the Astros’ two throwing errors in the inning -- was tagged for a leadoff homer by Nationals catcher Keibert Ruiz that snapped a scoreless tie in the ninth on Thursday. The 2-2 slider caught the very bottom of the strike zone, but Ruiz turned on it.

“I thought [Pressly] made a good pitch. Sometimes hitters just hit you,” Baker said. “From my vantage point, it looked like [Ruiz] hit a good pitch. Sometimes it’s not always the pitchers’ fault. Sometimes they get you. That’s what happened.”

Pressly was understandably upset considering he made the pitch he wanted to make and it was still dinged for a game-tying homer.

“I’d be even more upset than I am now if I left it over the middle of the plate,” he said. “Like I said, it’s an executed pitch, it’s a pitchers’ pitch. He just went down and got it. It’s frustrating [because] Javi goes out there and does what he does, and [relievers Bryan] Abreu and Hector [Neris] do the same thing, and I just can’t get my job done for some reason. It’s frustrating. It’s not sitting well with me right now.”

Maton has been perhaps the Astros’ best reliever this season. He entered the game ranked third in the American League in ERA (1.10), fourth in WHIP (0.73) and seventh in opponents’ batting average (.155) among relievers. He was unscored upon in 25 of his 29 outings entering Tuesday and had allowed multiple runs in just one of them.

In the 10th, Lane Thomas had an RBI single that rolled through the infield at 89.6 mph, Luis García hit a single up the middle that left the bat at 95.8 mph and -- after Maton hit Jeimer Candelario with a fastball and issued a bases-loaded walk to Corey Dickerson on four pitches -- Ruiz brought home another run with a bloop single.

“Unfortunately, it’s baseball,” Maton said. “In those situations, we’re trying to get the ball on the ground and strikeouts. The [pitches] where we got contact on the ground and me hitting Candelario, those were ones I was more upset about -- not really giving us a chance to get that big strikeout and make the inning a little easier. It is what it is.

“Yanking a fastball is something that if I’m not in the zone with that, it makes me a little one dimensional with the curveball and it’s hard to keep them honest. That’s something we have to clean up over the next couple of days so I can have a little bit more success doing that.”