Pitching, defense, and timely hitting are the avenues to winning. The Washington Nationals looked like their early-April selves on Friday night with struggling pitching from most of their pitchers and of course, add in the bone-crushing error that led to two unearned runs. Oh, and there was the obligatory blown-save in there for good measure.

There was some timely hitting but also a managerial decision of question on inserting pitch-hitter Jorbit Vivas into a one-out spot with a runner at 3rd base. Yes, the law-of-averages has bankrupted a few gamblers, but Vivas has even defied baseball logic with what is now an 0-24 in RISP situations — and 0-10 when a runner is on 3rd base. He probably should not be on this team.

“At the end of the day, we trust him to put together a good at-bat there. A first-pitch fly ball to left is not what we had planned for or hoped for there. He’s given us some good at-bats, but ultimately just thought Vivas was a better matchup than Nas in that spot. It didn’t work out.”

— manager Blake Butera said about inserting Jorbit Vivas as his pinch-hitter

Just like early April with the pitching staff situation, the Nats pitching staff threw 184 pitches to record 29 27 outs. Orlando Ribalta was amazing with a 7-pitch perfect inning to settle things down. But from the jump, opener Paxton Schultz, Andrew Alvarez, and Mitchell Parker all were shaky. But as we know, if your defense is good, you can get by without your best stuff. Parker would not have taken the loss if Nasim Nunez behind him made a throw to first base that wasn’t three feet above the leaping Luis Garcia Jr. Two batters later with two outs, the game winning 2-run homer was smashed, and that was the ball game.

Yes, the scrappy Nats fought to comeback and had some chances if the game of inches (and feet) went the Nats way. But errors and mistakes as we referred to as turnovers have a way of sinking most teams, and the Nats sunk themselves. Neither team’s pitching was good. The Padres burned their closer Mason Miller to throw 30 high-octane pitches to seal their win as he was asked to get the final four outs of the game.

The Nats were so close to crushing Miller when Garcia smashed an oppo liner that just missed getting over the head of Ramon Laureano by a foot or two in a bases loaded spot in the 8th inning. The ball came off of Garcia’s bat at 101.6 mph and travelled 345 feet. Garcia thought he had a hit. I thought he had it. Much of the 26,529 at Nationals Park thought he had it. Baseball is cruel.

The only reason Laureano was in left field is because Gavin Sheets was out of the game after he was subbed for a pinch-runner. Not a chance that Sheets would have fielded that ball with his -3.0 OAA. Credit to Padres’ manager Craig Stammen for thinking many steps ahead. Defense Matters.

After Friday’s game, the Nats unearned run total went to 36. That is -.62 free runs this season per game, and the most in baseball. The Nats still lead MLB in the most errors with 53. That is 14 more than the next closest team. Both CJ Abrams (8 errors) and Nunez (7 errors) rank in the Top-10 for most miscues. With Abrams, you know that is part of the deal because he is such an offensive force, but Nunez is a neg WAR player at -0.1, and he is batting .186 with a .493 OPS.

The Nats go into Saturday’s game at .500. The team needs to regroup, but is it time for Butera’s boss to get him some better players?