The Nationals faced an uphill battle this afternoon in the final game of this weekend’s series with the Red Sox. They had to overcome another ineffective outing from a starting pitcher and had to go up against one of the toughest starting pitchers in all of baseball. Despite this, the Nationals managed to stay within striking distance all afternoon, even displaying some excellent hitting against Red Sox starter Garrett Crochet.

In a surprise move, the Nats called up Shinnosuke Ogasawara to make the start today in his big league debut. The surprise was mostly because he’d only thrown 24 innings in the minors, and hadn’t pitched a game at a level above High-A ball since April 13th.

With those facts in mind, the game began this afternoon just about how you’d expect from someone with minimal experience, even at the Triple-A level. The Sox were on the board three batters into the game thanks to an RBI single from Roman Anthony, which was immediately followed by an RBI double from Rob Refsnyder, and finally a two-run homer from Trevor Story. Just like that, the Nationals were down 4-0 just five batters into the game, and had to face yet another abysmal start to the game from a starting pitcher.

The good news from the Nats’ offense today was that Crochet, a power arm known to overpower opponents with velocity, was unable to do that for most of the day. The Nationals had traffic on the basepaths all game long. Unfortunately, the downside of that is that they were consistently unable to come up with the clutch hit with men on base that would have changed the game. The Nats stranded 15 runners on base in today’s game, only pushing four of them across the plate.

The Nats had a big opportunity in the bottom of the second inning, loading the bases with two outs for James Wood. He got his pitch to hit, too. The 1-2 offering from Crochet was a fastball right down the middle, and Wood swung right through it. Ogasawara would be pulled in the top half of the third, forcing Dave Martinez to ask for 19 outs from his bullpen this afternoon.

The offense came alive in the bottom half of the third. Paul DeJong got some help from left fielder Jarren Duran, who misplayed a line drive off the bat of DeJong, allowing Amed Rosario to score from first base and get the Nats on the board via an RBI double. Brady House, facing Crochet for the first time, had himself a day. Brady was 3-3 off the lefty, including an RBI single in the third to score DeJong and make it a 4-2 game. The Nats would put runners on second and third with two outs later in the inning, but Crochet got Jacob Young to ground out to escape the jam.

The Nats stranded a runner on base in the fourth and fifth innings, but on the plus side, they made Crochet work enough to force Alex Cora to go to his bullpen after just five innings from his starter. They also got some good relief work from Cole Henry and Brad Lord to keep the score at 4-2 entering the seventh inning.

• Garrett Crochet: 5 innings, 9 hits (season high), 2 runs (both earned), 2 walks, 7 strikeouts, 98 pitches
• Shinnosuke Ogasawara (ML Debut): 2.2 innings, 7 hits, 4 runs (all earned), 0 walks, 2 strikeouts, 55 pitches

Martinez left Lord in just one batter too long, as the Sox got a leadoff double from Ceddanne Rafaela to start the top of the seventh, prompting Martinez to bring Jose A. Ferrer into the game. Ferrer got the next batter to ground out, but yet another wild pitch from him, something that’s become a problem in some of his recent outings, came back to bite the Nationals as the Red Sox immediately cashed in on a sacrifice fly from Romy Gonzalez.

The offense went to work against the Red Sox bullpen in the bottom of the seventh. Nathaniel Lowe worked a six-pitch leadoff walk, Josh Bell ripped a single to the opposite field, and then later in the inning, Riley Adams worked a seven-pitch walk with two outs to load the bases. Luis Garcia was brought in off the bench to pinch-hit in this big spot, representing the go-ahead run, and he worked an impressive eight-pitch walk to bring a run home and make it 5-3. The next batter, Alex Call, worked a 3-1 count, and with James Wood on deck, I would’ve liked to see him take the 3-1 fastball that was at the very top of the zone. He did not, and instead popped out to the shortstop to end the inning and the threat with Wood standing in the on-deck circle.

Ceddanne Rafaela added a solo home run in the top of the ninth to extend the lead, and though the Nationals would get a pinch-hit RBI single from Daylen Lile in the bottom of that inning, it wasn’t enough and the Red Sox completed the sweep with a 6-4 win.

The positives this afternoon were more than the average loss. Cole Henry, Jose A. Ferrer, Mason Thompson, and Kyle Finnegan all tossed scoreless outings out of the bullpen today to keep the offense within striking distance. Offensively, Brady House collected three hits off of one of the best starters in the American League. They also got multi-hit performances from Amed Rosario and Josh Bell, and after not walking at all in yesterday’s game, the Nats’ lineup drew six walks this afternoon in an encouraging step in the right direction.

In other positive news, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a huge positive that came out of this afternoon. For the first time in their careers, MacKenzie Gore and James Wood have been selected to the National League All-Star team. Wood probably should’ve been a starter if it weren’t for the fan vote system, but we’ll get to watch plenty of his swings the night before in the Home Run Derby. For Gore, this season has been the coming-of-age season, if you will, it seems like he’s finally reaching the extremely high ceiling that many have hoped he’d get to when he was just a prospect.

I’ll be glad to see Boston leave town this evening, as this series was about as disappointing as you could’ve asked for from the Nats. The homestanders did not hit a single home run over the three-game series, getting beaten 5-0 in that category. The three starting pitchers that the Nats used in this series combined for an ERA of 10.66 on the weekend, and the Red Sox outscored Washington by a combined score of 27-9. We’ve heard of ‘burn the tape’ games, I’m going to go ahead and say burn the tape on this whole weekend, and let’s move on to this last road trip before the break.

The Nats get an off day tomorrow as they travel to St. Louis, where the series with the Cardinals will begin Tuesday night at 7:45. The Nats are giving MacKenzie Gore two extra days of rest, at the expense of Jake Irvin (7-3, 4.71 ERA) who gets no extra rest to make this start after throwing 107 pitches on Thursday, and getting the ball to kick off the three-game set. Irvin is coming off an outing that began with a very rough first inning and finished with five tremendous innings, so let’s hope he can get off to a hot start to his game, something Nats starters have struggled to do lately.

Side note: This also lines up Gore to be able to pitch in the All-Star Game. He’ll be opposed by Andre Pallante (5-4, 4.10 ERA), who tossed seven scoreless innings in his start last Tuesday against the Pirates. The Nats have six games left before the All-Star break. Let’s see if they can bounce back with a much better week this week to wrap up the first half.