Nats' pitching a mixed bag in loss to Giants

WASHINGTON -- The Nationals dropped Tuesday’s series opener to the Giants, 7-3, and have now dropped three of the first four games on this six-game homestand. There was some good news Tuesday night: Anthony Rendon extended his career-best hitting streak to 14 games, and a key reliever got some promising outs. But the Nats also received some mixed pitching performances.

Here are three takeaways from Tuesday night:

1) Rosenthal heading in the right direction
The Nationals are still committed to ironing out whatever issues reliever Trevor Rosenthal has battled to start the season, and his performance in the eighth inning Tuesday night went a long way toward getting him back on track.

Although he surrendered a run on a bloop single, Rosenthal struck out a pair and completed the inning, a small but significant step forward for the flamethrowing reliever who has been off to a nightmare start in his return from Tommy John surgery on his right elbow. He has now tossed a full inning in his last two relief appearances, a positive sign after failing to record an out over his first four appearances this season.

“I feel a lot more normal today as far as my emotions and my nerves,” Rosenthal said. “Everything feels back to what I remember. I’m happy the way I’m feeling. I think there’s good things to come.”

Rosenthal began the inning by plunking Brandon Belt, then issued a five-pitch walk to Brandon Crawford. But Rosenthal regrouped and found the strike zone. He blew a fastball past Evan Longoria for called strike three and got Gerardo Parra to swing past a 100 mph fastball for another strikeout. Rosenthal did allow a bloop single to Kevin Pillar, surrendering a run in between the K's, but he managed to complete the inning without allowing further damage, drawing cheers from the crowd of 22,334 and congratulations from his catcher, Kurt Suzuki.

“Positive steps,” Suzuki said. “There’s no secret everybody is talking about Rosie. The stuff’s there, but he hasn’t been on the mound in a year and a half. I think the more he gets healthy, the more comfortable he will get. He’s going to be great. He works so hard, he has a great attitude, and it’s nice to see him get results for all his hard work.”

Washington signed Rosenthal before the start of the season to be its primary setup man in front of Sean Doolittle.

In his six appearances this season, his first since August 2017, Rosenthal's fastball velocity has been in the upper 90s, giving the team confidence health is not an issue. Instead, Rosenthal reiterated that the issue has been with controlling his emotions.

The Nats are hopeful an outing like this one will help him settle into his role.

“We’re definitely heading in the right direction with him,” manager Dave Martinez said. “He didn’t yank as many pitches as he did before. He was throwing downhill. It was definitely a positive day for Rosenthal, and we’ll take it from there.”

2) Martinez ejected for second time in his career
Martinez is not usually one to argue with umpires, earning just one ejection last April during his first full season as the Nationals' manager. But when the Nats took issue with home-plate umpire Tony Randazzo’s strike zone on Tuesday night, Martinez got tossed before the start of the sixth inning.

After both Brian Dozier and Rendon were called out on borderline strikes in the bottom of the fifth inning by Randazzo, Martinez began shouting from the dugout, which led to him getting thrown out. That surprised Martinez, who said he did not swear, and prompted him to emerge from the dugout to argue with Randazzo.

“I have a lot of respect for umpires, everybody knows that. I typically don't complain too much about them,” Martinez said. “But you know, him walking towards our dugout when I'm in the dugout, I hope the league looks at that, because like I said, I didn't say much to really get tossed. But he felt like I said enough.”

3) Strasburg stung by homers
Stephen Strasburg had not given up three homers in a single start since June 2017. His ability to keep the ball in the ballpark is one of his trademarks when he's on his game. However, Strasburg has not been pitching with his usual dominance to begin the season.

After cruising through the first four innings Tuesday, limiting the Giants to just two hits, Strasburg was tagged for a trio of homers. Longoria started the action with a solo homer in the fifth, followed by Steven Duggar’s two-run homer later in the inning. Brandon Belt capped it off with a solo homer in the sixth.

Strasburg was not overly concerned with the homers or his 5.56 ERA to start the season, but he also acknowledged he needed to make a few adjustments before his next start.

“I think the numbers are going to even themselves out,” he said. “It's not that easy to swing first pitch and [homer]. When things aren't going well, it comes down to a couple pitches, and that's what happened tonight. So just got to focus on all the good ones that I made. I felt for the most part everything was working.”