WASHINGTON – On Saturday, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo talked about his team’s ability to score five to seven runs every night.
On Sunday against the Washington Nationals, they did just that. It wasn’t enough.
Rookie starter Kohl Drake didn’t make it through the fifth inning and the D-backs bullpen, which has been solid, allowed six runs (five earned) in four innings of a 10-7 loss to the Nationals.
The D-backs dropped the final two games of the series and saw their lead for the third NL Wild Card spot shrink to one game over the Nationals and the Pirates. Arizona opens a three-game series in Pittsburgh on Monday, when the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline will be one week away.
“We’re not thinking about what’s going to happen this week,” shortstop Geraldo Perdomo said of the Deadline. “We just go out and play good baseball. We aren’t thinking about if somebody here’s going to get traded, if they’re going to bring in some pieces. We’re gonna do our job. We’re gonna control what we can control.”
Making his second Major League start on Sunday, Drake was given three leads but surrendered each one, allowing consistent hard contact. Ahead 4-2 in the fifth, he issued a leadoff walk to Nasim Nuñez and James Wood followed with a two-run homer to tie it.
“The most important inning in baseball is the inning after you score, right?” Lovullo said. “Shutdown inning. I think the walk to start the fifth was very critical.”
Drake allowed four runs on five hits (two of them homers). He walked two and struck out one.
Jonathan Loáisiga came on and gave up a single to pinch-hitter Daylen Lile, and one out later CJ Abrams smacked his second homer of the game to give Washington a 6-4 lead.
In the seventh, Brandyn Garcia, who had not allowed a run in 16 straight appearances (13 innings) while striking out 19 batters, was touched for three runs, two of them earned.
“He’s been lights out for us, so I can expect something like this to [eventually] happen,” Lovullo said.
A single and back-to-back doubles produced two runs, and another scored when Garcia threw wildly to first on Luis García Jr.’s dribbler.
Kevin Ginkel allowed a solo homer to Wood in the eighth. Those runs more than offset three late tallies by the Diamondbacks, including two runs in the ninth after they loaded the bases with no outs.
Lovullo’s relievers had provided three scoreless innings in each of the first two games of the series.
“Overall the bullpen has been great and they will continue to be great, but they had an off day today,” Lovullo said.
The poor pitching performances negated a solid afternoon for the the top of the lineup one day after Lovullo switched things up. The manager moved Ketel Marte down into the cleanup spot and Gabriel Moreno up to number three behind Corbin Carroll and Perdomo.
The group combined to go 5-for-14 with five walks and six runs scored. Perdomo hit a solo homer and walked three times, Moreno had two doubles and a sacrifice fly to drive in two runs and Marte hit a solo home run. Carroll doubled, walked and scored twice.
“That’s what we’re looking for from that group,” Lovullo said. “We’ll put that on ‘em. We’ve got to continue to reinforce the type of lineup we have but we’re gonna rely on that group.”
Perdomo had gone 0-for-13 over his previous four games.
“I feel okay,” he said. “Not my best, how I know I can do it. I lost part of my timing and it cost me a lot to get it back. … Trying to improve and get better every single day.”