The Nats took the field yesterday afternoon in the last leg of a 3-game tilt against the Mets in an attempt to win the series after winning Wednesday night’s game 8-3, and losing Tuesday’s game 4-2. 

Washington struggled to get going yesterday, losing by a score of 4-1. Aside from a ninth inning solo homer from Juan Soto, DC only managed 3 hits in 8 innings, and were down 3-0 by the fourth inning. 

Joan Adon made his second start against the Mets this season, and unfortunately saw some early struggles that the team was ultimately unable to overcome:

3.2 IP, 3 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 5 BB, 2 SO, L, 7.03 ERA

5 walks in less than four innings is a problem for the young pitcher. I’m not too worried about Adon, mostly because he is way ahead of schedule on his development, and it’s frankly good to know he’s getting outs at all. Unfortunately, 3 earned runs and 84 pitches in only 3.2 frames got Adon chased early. While he’s struggling with control, his velocity and movement are still on the right trajectory, so I still refuse to be worried about him. Control can be worked on, other things are much harder to improve upon if the properties for success aren’t there. Even so, he gave up only 3 runs, which in many circumstances a team with good offense can overcome.

Unfortunately, the Nats don’t have that.

Mets pitcher Taijuan Walker had a field day against DC:

7 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 SO, W, 3.00 ERA

Sadly, there isn’t much to discuss here. Walker only managed 1 strikeout, which shows just how much the Nats were unable to get hits off of him or make hard contact. When facing soft contact pitchers like Walker, teams that can’t square up for hits can suffer, and with the issues the Nats have had, plus the fact it seems like it was just not their day today, the end result of this game was not pretty. 

Some other things that I thought after yesterday:

• At this rate, Nelson Cruz is looking less like someone we signed to trade at the deadline, and more like someone we’d have to pay teams to take.
• Dee Strange-Gordon isn’t much better than Alcides Escobar at shortstop, who currently is sitting out with an infected hangnail. Please tell me why Luis Garcia is playing in Rochester right now. I can’t take it anymore.
• The Lane Thomas question in center field doesn’t have to be asked anymore. There’s a reason we got this guy for Jon Lester. 
• I love Juan Soto.

A pretty uneventful game was had yesterday, but as we keep chugging forward, things continue to look not great for DC. A series against the Astros this weekend isn’t going to help that. But we play anyway!

This is                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        CK, signing off.