Washington Nationals: Taylor Error Pushes Skid To Five

Tonight, a defensive miscue by center field Michael Taylor in the ninth led to a fifth consecutive loss for the Washington Nationals

The Washington Nationals were so close to ending the losing skid, but as Murphy’s Law states “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong” was a perfect way to describe tonight’s crushing loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Los Angeles ended up coming from behind to win it when Michael Taylor made an error in the ninth inning on a Yasiel Puig single that allowed the final two runs to score. Taylor ended up going 0-for-5 with five strikeouts tonight in addition to the late error.

Tonight, it was the Dodgers jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning, as Chase Utley scored thanks to a wild pitch by Washington Nationals starter Joe Ross.

One inning later, the Nats ended up tying the ball game thanks to some clutch hitting by Danny Espinosa. The infielder narrowly missed a home run by mere inches but settled for a two-out double to center field, which scored Ryan Zimmerman.

Then, Ross helped his own cause by hitting a double to right field that gave his club a 2-1 lead. This marked the first career RBI for Ross, who ended up having two hits on the night.

In the third inning, Corey Seager hit his 16^th home run of the season to dead center field to tie the game 2-2.

As for Dodgers starter Julio Urias, he only went five innings, but he kept his team in the game. Urias gave up two runs on six hits, allowed one free pass, and fanned six batters on a season-high 94 pitches (57 strikes) in a no-decision. This was the fourth consecutive outing in which the left-hander held the opposition to two or fewer runs.

The Washington Nationals had an opportunity to re-take the lead in the seventh, but failed to capitalize. They had runners on first and second with only one out, but Taylor struck out and Jayson Werth flew out to right to end the inning against Casey Fien.

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In the battle of two pitchers who had a combined age of 42 years old, Ross went deeper into the game than his young counterpart. The right-hander pitched 6.1 innings, surrendered seven hits, yielded two runs, issued one walk, allowed one home run and struck out five batters on 100 pitches (63 strikes) in a no-decision.

Oliver Perez followed Ross and he did a fantastic job. Perez entered the bottom of the seventh with two men in scoring position and just one out. But, he kept the Dodgers off the board by striking out Enrique Hernandez and forcing Seager to fly out to center.

Ramos gave the Washington Nationals a 3-2 lead in the eighth inning as he hit a solo home run to left against reliever Pedro Baez. It was Ramos’ 12th home run of the season.

Dusty Baker would end up using Felipe Rivero and Shawn Kelley to get through the eighth inning. Kelley recorded one out in the ninth, but that would be the last positive thing in the ninth for the Washington.

Howie Kendrick hit a pinch-hit single to right and a defensive error by Taylor on a Puig single allowed the Dodgers to score two runs and win 4-3 in walk-off fashion to get their sixth straight win.

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Next Game: The Washington Nationals (43-30) are off Thursday, but will continue their road trip against the Milwaukee Brewers (32-40) on Friday at Miller Park. Max Scherzer (8-4, 3.29 ERA) will be on the mound for the Nats and Zach Davies (5-3, 3.62 ERA) gets the call for the Brewers. You can watch the game at 8:10 p.m. ET on MASN2.