Nats see plenty of positives from 'hard-fought series' in Miami

MIAMI -- On a warm, quiet Sunday at loanDepot park, the Nationals sprinkled pink on a lot of their gear for Mother’s Day. In the rubber match of a series that has been defined by close scores, the color change couldn't keep Washington from falling, 5-2, to the Marlins.

“It's a hard-fought series against a really good team at their place. You know, I think all three of these games could have gone either way and came down to the late innings. Ultimately, [this is] a chance for us to learn from some things and regroup,” Nationals manager Blake Butera said.

For Nasim Nuñez, who stole three bases in the series and leads the Majors with 17, this weekend was another reminder of what baseball is about. It is not about riding the roller coaster but understanding it is a game of failure.

“You fail 70% of the time, so you can't be scared of it. You got to kind of embrace it. You can't really run from it,” Nuñez said.

A good example of that, for him, was the pitcher he saw Sunday afternoon.

Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara took the mound with a 7-0 record and a 2.01 ERA in his previous nine starts against the Nationals, with Miami winning all nine games.

The right-hander pitched six innings Sunday, allowing two runs on five hits and two walks -- both to Nuñez -- and matched his second-lowest total of the season with three strikeouts. Alcantara threw only 58 of his 89 pitches for strikes.

“Sandy's a competitor, he's gonna go at you with everything you got,” Nuñez said. “He's not gonna give in. Even though … he wasn't really around the zone, but he stayed through it, and the game just rewarded him and not us.”

Another player who found some success against Alcantara was Luis García Jr., who entered the game just 2-for-21 (.095) in his career against the 30-year-old righty.

After grounding out in the first inning, García led off the fourth with a triple on a low four-seamer down the right-field line, a day after returning to the starting lineup and going 3-for-5 with three singles. García was involved in both of Washington’s runs, scoring on a groundout from Brady House in the next at-bat.

“One of the best things about [Alcantara] is that the changeup and sinker are very similar, so that makes him very effective,” García said in Spanish. “I just [tried] to stay focused and calm. Understand that adversity is part of the game.”

In the top of the fifth, García tied the score at 2 with an RBI double down the right-field line with runners on the corners, scoring Jorbit Vivas, who singled to lead off the inning. Alcantara fell behind each of the first three hitters he faced in the frame.

“He's been a really good pitcher in this game for a while now, and for good reason,” Butera said. “His stuff looks great. Throws up to 98 [mph], tons of strikes, mixes speeds, [and] he's got a ton of pitches. He's a horse.”

For the Nationals, Cade Cavalli pitched 5 2/3 innings, giving up two runs on four hits and one walk with four strikeouts. The right-hander threw 95 pitches, using his knuckle-curve 34 times, which generated a 38% whiff rate.

“It's so easy to say after an outing with runners on, maybe throw something spinny where we can maybe get a ground ball, and then we did it, and we got a ground ball and just an unfortunate bounce, but that was it,” Cavalli said. “I mean, not a whole lot of hard contact, and just grinded through [the third].”

No matter the outing, Cavalli said he looks at both the positives and negatives, and Sunday he felt there was plenty of both, especially when he was in the strike zone and landing his curveball.

“We got a really good group of guys here, and it hurts when we lose, but we're gonna bounce back and just keep competing,” Cavalli said. “I think over 162, we'll look up and we'll be happy with what we've done.”