More late heroics from Hernández not enough in Marlins' 10-inning loss

WASHINGTON -- Even Heriberto Hernández's latest clutch home run couldn’t propel the Marlins to victory on Saturday against the suddenly irksome Nationals.

Hernández clubbed a two-run, two-out home run off Brad Lord to complete a four-run seventh inning. But the Marlins ultimately fell to a 5-4, 10-inning defeat decided by Dylan Crews’ bases-loaded single off Michael Petersen.

“It’s hard,” Hernández said through an interpreter. “We came with a winning mentality, and trying to have a winning road trip. So far it’s not a good start. We’ve got to improve that. I have not many words today.”

Kyle Stowers doubled in two runs to commence the rally in the seventh before Hernández connected for his 22nd homer of the season, fourth in the last seven games and fifth this season to tie or take the lead in the seventh inning or later.

But that was the end of the heroics, with the Marlins eventually forced to accept a second straight loss against Washington to open this seven-game road trip after previously beating the Nationals in eight straight.

Miami (68-68) also dropped 4 1/2 games behind the Diamondbacks, the new leaders in the chase for the final NL Wild Card spot. The Marlins are also four games behind the Padres.

“We’re certainly, now that this [game] is over, mindful of where we are,” manager Clayton McCullough said, whose club has 26 games to play. “We’re going to need to start winning some games to get back to a good position.”

Sandy Alcantara worked six innings and allowed all four runs in the third, a frame made more complicated by catcher Joe Mack’s second errant, hurried throw in as many games.

All those runs were eventually assigned to Alcantara’s earned runs after Brady House’s single and Jorbit Vivas’ double each produced add-on tallies.

“I was doing my best out there to try to keep the game as close as I can,” said the veteran Alcantara, who allowed eight hits and a walk and struck out three. “I was pitching, throwing strikes. I was attacking the hitters. They just swing the bat out there. It just happened.”

The Marlins had scored two or fewer runs in eight of Alcantara’s last nine outings. They looked poised to make it nine out of 10 before Javier Sanoja’s hard-hit groundout caught Nationals starter Cade Cavalli’s right leg and forced him out of the game with calf discomfort after four innings.

After two clean relief innings from Erik Tolman, Tom Cosgrove entered and retired two batters, then ran into trouble facing a pair of pinch hitters, with Leo Jiménez singling and Agustín Ramírez following with a walk.

That brought up the left-handed Stowers, who launched Cosgrove’s 1-1 sweeper at the bottom of the zone to right center, landing on the warning track just beyond Daylen Lile’s dive.

Hernández followed by driving Lord’s second pitch a Statcast-projected 398 feet into the bushes at the back of the visitors' bullpen.

But even he proved human two innings later when he flied out to left to end the ninth with the potential go-ahead run in scoring position. He’s now slashing .333/.419/.815 in his last seven games, numbers that actually ticked downward after Saturday’s heroism.

“The last couple years, he’s come up with some really big home runs in the latter part of games, some base hits that do it as well,” McCullough said. “He seems like he kind of has a knack for that. He’s been a real boost for us.”