The Washington Nationals had a bit of a reversion Saturday night, back to their old ways and it ended up costing them in an 8-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles. Most noticeably absent from Saturday's game that was in Friday's: offense. A poor pitching performance did not help the Nationals chances either.
After pounding out 19 hits and 17 runs on Friday, the Nationals could only muster seven hits and three runs. Two of those runs came off a third-inning error by the Orioles. So in essence, this game was a lot uglier than it already looked. The only National to score an RBI was catcher Wilson Ramos who hit a sac-fly to bring in a run in the top of the ninth.
The Nationals might soon have to figure out to do with left-hander John Lannan. Lannan suffered his fifth loss of the season going six-innings giving up six runs on nine hits. In Friday's game manager Jim Riggleman removed pitcher Jason Marquis in the fourth-inning after he put together a similar line, right before the Nats put together a six-run inning. Lannan would get no such luck Saturday. The southpaw himself seems a lot of times unconfident in his stuff and an unwillingness to sometimes just go for the strike zone. Like the Nationals offense, some nights Lannan has it, most of them he doesn't.
Reliever Cole Kimball had a rough night as well giving up two-runs on four hits. Those four hits were four back-to-back singles.
The Nats fall to 21-24 and are in fifth place in the cellar of the NL East.