WASHINGTON — The Miami Marlins squandered a three-run lead and dropped their third game in four tries against the Washington Nationals, falling 6-3 at Nationals Park on Monday night and closing August with a 13-14 record that leaves their Wild Card hopes hanging by a thread.
The loss dropped Miami to 69-69 on the season with 24 games to play and four games behind the San Diego Padres — who won Monday — for the final National League Wild Card berth. The Marlins had previously beaten the Nationals eight straight times before this series.
“We don’t have a ton of baseball ahead of us, but we have enough,” said Marlins first baseman Kyle Stowers, who hit a two-run single during a three-run fourth inning. “Just keep going, and we’ve got a big stretch coming up.”
Reigning NL Player of the Week Daylen Lile did the damage for Washington, connecting on a pair of two-run home runs despite manager Clayton McCullough twice summoning a bullpen arm specifically to face the left-handed slugger. Lile took Jack Ralston’s 2-2 slider to the opposite field in the fifth to cut Miami’s lead to 3-2, then turned on Josh Ekness’ inside heater in the seventh, sending it off the face of the second deck in right to give Washington a 4-3 lead and ignite a four-run frame. Esteury Ruiz’s throwing error from right field and Brady House’s RBI single added to the damage.
“You go through a lot of decisions each day, and I understand the criticism and the scrutiny when those decisions don’t work out,” McCullough said. “We’re always discussing the thought process and preparedness part of it. But you know what? Sometimes you get beat.”
Starter Ryan Gusto allowed four singles and walked two through 4 1/3 innings, throwing 49 of 69 pitches for strikes and being charged with one run. “I trust the team’s mission to win the game and then put us in the best situation to do so,” Gusto said. “I feel like the bullpen does a great job, and we have a really good bullpen. So I can never knock putting them in the game to continue putting up zeros to give us the best chance to win.”
Miami’s offense managed just 15 runs in only five of 36 innings across the series. The Marlins loaded the bases with no outs in the eighth when Otto Lopez, Griffin Conine and Javier Sanoja singled, but Erik Tolman struck out Stowers and induced Leo Jiménez into a 4-3 double play before completing a six-out save.
“I don’t think guys are pressing … in the sense of trying to do too much, per se, or feeling the pressure,” Stowers said. “I just don’t think we’re stringing together our best at-bats of the year right now. Why that is exactly? All of us have kind of got to look individually at what we can do better on a nightly basis.”
The Marlins head to Kansas City for the second stop of their second-to-last road trip, needing a September surge to close a four-game gap with 24 contests remaining.