Washington, D.C. — The baseball schedule is unrelenting. Players accept that, they train for it and they don’t make excuses about it.
But playing three games in the span of 30 hours – that’s an uncommon level of drudgery and the Tigers handled it poorly in the early stages Thursday night and wound up losing the rubber match to the 37-50 Washington Nationals, 11-7.
“We did not play well; full stop,” manager AJ Hinch said. “And we paid the price of not winning the series.”
BOX SCORE: Nationals 11, Tigers 7
If there is such a thing as hitting the wall, the Tigers hit it at the end of Game 2 Wednesday night when the Nationals sent 10 batters to the plate in their final at-bat and scored six runs.
The next time the Nationals came to bat, in the first inning Thursday, they sent nine batters to the plate, scored five runs and never really looked back.
“I think our whole team had a tough night,” Hinch said. “We got into the game pretty well and we fought a little at the end, which was nice to see. But in between those innings, we struggled.”
Lefty Dietrich Enns, who blanked the Athletics in his season debut last Thursday, never got untracked in this game. He lasted one batter into the fifth, but that was mostly because the Tigers’ bullpen was spent and he needed to eat some innings.
“Poor execution on my part,” said Enns, who finished with eight, hits, two homers, eight runs (seven earned) on his ledger in four innings. “I’ve got to be better and get ahead of guys and not walk the leadoff hitter, which was mistake number one. Just some self-inflicted damage, falling behind guys and not executing pitches.”
The two lefties at the top of the Nationals batting order especially vexed Enns. CJ Abrams and James Wood produced four hits, a walk and four runs, including Wood’s 23rd home run.
“You miss or you are in the middle (of the plate), both of those are bad against those young hitters,” Hinch said.
Wood ended up with a career-high five hits on the night.
Paul DeJong also took Enns deep, a three-run shot to cap the five-run first inning.
“I felt good, just the overall execution,” Enns said. “Those guys are paid to hit and when you fall behind 2-0, they are going to put good swings on it. When you throw it over the heart of the plate, they were able to do some damage.
“I need to pick it up, learn from it and move forward.”
Things turned ugly for the Tigers in a bizarre fifth inning. First Zach McKinstry was charged with an error on throw that eluded first baseman Colt Keith. All-Star Javier Baez then booted a sure double-play ball.
Lastly, McKinstry misplayed a routine ground ball at third.
Amazingly, reliever Brenan Hanifee was able to limit the damage to two unearned runs.
“We’re going to get on a plane, get to a new city and start a new series,” Hinch said. “It’s frustrating and obviously we missed an opportunity to win a series. We need to be better and we will be.”
Hard to believe there was a time in this game when the Tigers had a 3-0 lead.
With two outs and two on in the first inning, Spencer Torkelson and Nats’ starter Jake Irvin engaged in a 10-pitch battle that Torkelson won, launching a 3-2 fastball onto the green batter’s eye in dead center – a 428-foot blast.
It was Torkelson’s 19th homer.
Irvin needed 34 pitches to get out of the first inning, but did not allow another hit and worked through the sixth inning.
The Tigers chipped away at the Nats’ bullpen.
They strung four singles together off reliever Cole Henry in the seventh, with RBI singles by All-Star Gleyber Torres and Wenceel Perez. Torres had two hits and extended his on-base streak to 18 games.
In the eighth, they took advantage of a hit-batsman and walk by reliever Brad Lord. Parker Meadows singled in a run and Baez’s hard ground ball – robbed of a hit by Abrams at shortstop – plated another to make it 9-7.
But the taxed Tigers bullpen continued to leak. The Nationals put the game away in the eighth, scoring twice off reliever Carlos Hernandez, forcing Hinch to use leverage reliever Will Vest to get through the inning.
“I hate it,” Hinch said of where his bullpen is right now. “I don’t love it. But we will be fine. We have guys who will be ready. I had to use Will to make sure I didn’t hurt Carlos who was getting close to 50 pitches in two innings.
“We’re not in a good spot but we will show up ready to play tomorrow. We have a lot to talk about.”
The Tigers have lost their last two road series and gone 3-3 in their last six series overall. Hinch was asked if he felt the injuries to the pitching staff are finally taking a toll.
“No,” he said. “We can win these series. We just need to play better. We will play better. We just need to wear it tonight. We didn’t play well enough to win.”
The Tigers open a three-game series in Cleveland Friday night. At 54-34, they will go in with a healthy 11.5 lead over the Guardians in the Central Division.
@cmccosky
Want to comment on this story? Become a subscriber today. Click here.