Past performance usually is a good indicator of what you will see in the future, and sure enough it did again today with Gio Gonzalez. In this game, it looked bad from the start as Gonzalez was missing his spots and loaded the bases in the first inning. While the inning ended with giving up just one run, the damage seemed to have been done. The stadium went quiet as did the Nationals bats. They barely put together anything and continued this history of losing their 7th game in Gio’s last 8 starts. The run support behind Gio continued in those starts to be less than a run per game. Something is not clicking with this team when Gio starts. This is the same Nats offense that just scored an average of 13.33 runs per game in the previous 3-games.
“Suero saved out bullpen,”manager Dave Martinez said. “We have to rebound on the game in three hours.”
The Nationals had several innings with baserunners in scoring position, but could not score a run going 1-8 in RISP spots with the only run scoring off of a slow groundball out by Ryan Zimmerman. Bryce Harper, Juan Soto and Daniel Murphy each had 2-hits in the game.
When Gonzalez exited at 3 2/3 inning surrendering 6-runs, Wander Suero entered and stranded the 2 inherited runners and continued to shutdown the Reds. Suero matched Gonzalez in innings and technically gave up 1-run which should not have happened on an infield hit that Trea Turner had to rush the throw with Billy Hamilton running and Zimmerman could not scoop the ball. Hamilton quickly stole 2nd base and moved to 3rd base on a flyball tag-up and scored on a sacrifice fly.
The Nationals 3-game winning streak ended with this 7-1 loss, and now have to get ready for the night game of this doubleheader.
