Washington Nationals' Dusty Baker feeling 'emotional toll' as bullpen blows another game
BALTIMORE — Star-studded from the rotation — fronted by a two-time Cy Young Award winner — to a lineup that’s produced more runs than any team in Major League Baseball, the Washington Nationals should be running away with the National League East.
Instead, a malfunctioning bullpen continues to hold them back — and manager Dusty Baker sounds like he can’t take much more of it.
The NL’s worst bullpen — by almost any measure — had another untimely pratfall Tuesday night, when Baker granted Enny Romero a shot to record the final three outs. Instead, Romero ruined the eight sparkling innings turned in by Max Scherzer, yielding a pair of ninth-inning runs to the Baltimore Orioles.
Three innings later, they absorbed an almost inevitable walk-off loss, when Mark Trumbo singled off long reliever Jacob Turner for a 5-4 Orioles victory.
But it was that ninth inning — in which Romero committed the cardinal sin of walking the leadoff man, Chris Davis — that ruined Baker’s ride back to Washington as this series shifts south for two games.
“It takes a big emotional toll,” Baker said after the Nationals lost three consecutive games for the first time this season. “One of the biggest downers in baseball is when you blow a game late.
“It’s certainly tested my team’s emotional strength. We’ll see how we come out of this.”
If Baker sounds like a man running out of options, well, that’s understandable.
Landing a closer was about the only item left unchecked on the Nationals’ off-season to-do list, but even as the unit struggled, Washington raced out to a 21-9 start.
But the ugly numbers — an NL-worst 5.46 ERA, six blown saves that rank second in the league — only begin to explain Baker’s predicament.
Blake Treinen, their opening-day closer, has an 8.59 ERA and has given up 25 hits in 14 2/3 innings.
Shawn Kelley, who saved three games after taking over for Treinen, is on the disabled list with a back injury until at least Friday. But even Kelley has a 5.40 ERA.
Hard-throwing righty Koda Glover’s hip problems have returned; he begins a rehab assignment at Class AA Harrisburg on Wednesday.
Matt Albers? Oliver Perez? Joe Blanton? Matt Grace?
In the late innings, they amount to tossing a dart for Baker.
Tuesday, he opted for Romero, the lefty with a blazing fastball but little else in his repertoire.
He was little match for the patient and powerful Orioles, who tied it on RBI hits by Jonathan Schoop and J.J. Hardy. Caleb Joseph nearly joined that group with a game-ending RBI single, but Bryce Harper’s perfect throw — clocked at 99.7 mph, the hardest measured in MLB’s three-year Statcast era — cut down Hardy trying to score the winning run.
“That’s what stars do,” Baker said.
Indeed, much of the night was almost an ode to the Nationals’ otherwise impeccable construction. Scherzer took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, struck out 11 thanks to a dazzling slider and won an argument with Baker to finish off the eighth inning.
Adam Lind hit a pinch-hit, go-ahead three-run homer to put Scherzer in position to win.
And yet, for the second time in three games, it went south quickly. Sunday, it was Grace and Albers blowing a 5-2 lead heading to the bottom of the seventh inning at Philadelphia, before Treinen wore the walk-off indignity in the 10th inning.
More baseball:
Tuesday was Romero’s turn.
“Look, everybody’s out here grinding, doing everything they can to win ballgames,” says Scherzer. “Nothing’s going to change anybody’s determination, anybody’s attitude in this clubhouse. Everybody in here knows what we need to do to win.
“Just believe that everybody’s going to be able to get the job done.”
That’s been the case for almost everybody. But the blown late leads have the Nationals a mere 4 ½ games up on the dysfunctional New York Mets, who crawled back to .500 (16-16) on Tuesday.
Yet somehow, it’s the frontrunners searching for answers.
“That was a tough one to lose,” Baker said. “After a few games, there’s not much you can say.”
Follow Gabe Lacques on Twitter @GabeLacques.