{"id":669964,"date":"2026-04-08T09:26:53","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/669964\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T09:26:53","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T09:26:53","slug":"nationals-blow-another-lead-late-fall-to-cardinals-in-the-10th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/669964\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals blow another lead late, fall to Cardinals in the 10th"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe what\u2019s happening in Washington is a balancing of the sporting universe. If this month indeed marks the end of Alex Ovechkin\u2019s legendary Capitals career<\/a>, something will have to fill the void of \u201cthe Great 8.\u201d And if the baseball gods have a perverse sense of humor, perhaps the Nationals are offering their own punny candidate.<\/p>\n

At Nationals Park this week, the eighth inning has not been great for Washington\u2019s beleaguered bullpen. Quite the opposite, actually. On Tuesday night, en route to a 7-6 extra-innings loss to the Cardinals, the Nationals blew an eighth-inning lead for the third straight game<\/a>. It was their sixth defeat in seven games; only a rally in the bottom of the eighth inning Monday night against St. Louis<\/a> kept them from Major League Baseball\u2019s longest losing streak.<\/p>\n

A pair of 10th-inning RBI doubles from left fielder Thomas Saggese and second baseman JJ Wetherholt off reliever Cole Henry gave the Cardinals their first lead since the top of the third inning. The Nationals could not match them; their only run in the final four innings came on a wild pitch in the 10th. Second baseman Nasim Nu\u00f1ez struck out to end the game, leaving pinch hitter Jorbit Vivas stranded at third base. <\/p>\n

The culprit Tuesday night, however, was a familiar one. Washington entered the game with an 8.10 ERA in the eighth inning, baseball\u2019s third-worst mark. Their relievers\u2019 overall ERA: 6.34, fourth worst. After Nathan Church\u2019s two-out, two-run homer off Nationals reliever Gus Varland tied the game at 5, an announced crowd of 20,036 offered mostly groans. <\/p>\n

Now the Nationals (4-7) head to Wednesday\u2019s rubber match against the Cardinals (6-5) with their greatest weakness under even greater scrutiny.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt stinks,\u201d Nationals manager Blake Butera said. \u201cYes, a few times now we\u2019ve had leads late in games and just haven\u2019t been able to put teams away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Command was an issue from the start. Cade Cavalli, who opened the season as the Nationals\u2019 would-be ace, lamented a \u201crecurring theme\u201d in his third start: He didn\u2019t get ahead in at-bats often enough. He walked four batters. The Nationals finished with 10 overall. Of their 200 pitches thrown, just 118 (59%) were for strikes.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen walks is too many,\u201d Butera said. \u201cYou can\u2019t be a team walking 10 people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nationals\u2019 offense did its part early by plating five runs through the first six innings. Right fielder James Wood led the way, homering for the third straight game, and first baseman Curtis Mead tacked on a solo blast to put Washington ahead 3-2 in the fifth inning. Shortstop CJ Abrams and Mead added run-scoring singles that pushed the lead to 5-2 in the sixth.<\/p>\n

But then things fell apart, as they tend to do for the Nationals\u2019 bullpen. Cavalli had departed midway through the fifth inning after an uneven 94-pitch outing in which he held the Cardinals to just two runs, one of them earned.<\/p>\n

Paxton Schultz, making his season debut after Washington reinstated him from the 15-day injured list earlier Tuesday, gave the Nationals a clean inning in relief of Cavalli. PJ Poulin followed and allowed one run in a dicey 1 1\/3 innings. Church struck the biggest blow, tagging Varland\u2019s 87-mph slider in the eighth, and neither team could find a go-ahead run before extra innings. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t my night,\u201d said Varland, who after posting scoreless outings in his first two appearances has allowed three earned runs in his past two. \u201cI tried to get through with the stuff I had. The slider was playing. Got me some outs. It just didn\u2019t get to a spot when it needed to be.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve just got to stay on the attack,\u201d Cavalli said. \u201cWe\u2019re walking guys, falling behind, so that\u2019s never a good equation. We\u2019ve got to just get better at that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nationals are looking for more length from their starters, but Butera said their shorter-than-desired outings have not taxed the bullpen. \u201cThese guys are pretty well rested,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Still, he acknowledged, the Nationals need to \u201cget the pitching squared away.\u201d He said he was open to giving other arms a look in high-leverage spots. He also said he didn\u2019t want to overreact. <\/p>\n

Even in early April, there was a balancing act to manage. Washington has one of baseball\u2019s worst bullpens. Butera believes it will get better. His job for now is to make sure it gets no worse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all feel it,\u201d Cavalli said. \u201cWe\u2019re a team. We win together. We lose together, so we feel it. When guys have to come out earlier than they probably should, it hurts.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe what\u2019s happening in Washington is a balancing of the sporting universe. If this month indeed marks the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2398],"tags":[152,5,668,4,505,415,669,414,71,4222],"class_list":{"0":"post-669964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-nationals","8":"tag-american-league","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-bestof","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-national-league","13":"tag-nationals","14":"tag-topix","15":"tag-washington","16":"tag-washington-nationals","17":"tag-washingtonnationals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116368378633941195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}