NLDS 2019; Photo by Sol Tucker/Nats.Talk

And Washington Nationals manager Blake Butera spoke “playoffs” unabashedly in the pregame. Did You Say Playoffs? That loss deserves a Jim Mora rant. We should be talking layoffs.

Throw away the Carson Palmquist script. That did not work on Tuesday in Colorado when he gave up four runs in 1⅔ innings — so why did you think it would work on Friday in Washington to push the same act?

Do you sometimes think these games are scripted for the rookie manager Butera? Scene 1: Get two innings from Palmquist. Scene 2: Get at least four innings from Zack Littell.

There wasn’t a knowledgeable fan watching the game who expected to see Palmquist pitch that second inning after he struggled in his first inning to load the bases, only to be saved by a heads-up play from Jacob Young to backpick the runner at second base to allow Palmquist to escape with no runs on 32 pitches in that first frame.

Yes, Palmquist started the second inning and gave up a double and a walk, and the only out he got was on a sacrifice bunt. But within minutes, both of those runners would score and make it a 2-0 deficit for the Nats.

Butera is a manager who has to be considered for Manager of the Year based on the team’s record today, and the fact that the team has gone well above expectations. Before the game, in Butera’s pre-game media session, he spoke big words for a first year manager:

Big words and he said more. Not followed up in big actions. He leaves those matchups for late in games and didn’t make the right move to pull Palmquist. Sure, Butera always make moves late in games like he did on Friday when he pulled from his weakened bench to send in Jose Tena and Jorbit Vivas as pinch-hitters.

In fact, Butera made four pinch-hitting moves late in this game, and they went a combined 0-for-4. But maybe if he pulled newbie Harry Ford early in the game for Keibert Ruiz when the situation was runners on third and second base with one out — do the Nats score there instead of the Ford strikeout? That was the highest leverage moment of his offense in the game at that point. If this was the playoffs, don’t you make that move? Ford at that point had all of 14 plate appearances in his Nats career.

A few weeks ago, Cole Henry had a very rough outing. After that game, Butera took the blame and said that he didn’t put Henry in a good spot, “Look, I will 100 percent wear Cole Henry’s poor second inning … To be very transparent and truthful, I think we did Cole a disservice because we didn’t have him throw multiple innings at Triple-A. A lot of times when we bring a player up from Triple-A, it’s because our bullpen’s thin, and we’re going to need them to throw multiple innings.”

Pushing relievers for a second inning is a thing here with the Nationals. We know that. But it seems to fail more than it works. You need good pitchers is the first part of this. The Palmquist move seemed destined to fail, and it did twice in a 3-game span. The repeating of a prior failure so fresh in your mind is what boggles the mind sometimes. How did you let it happen a second time? A serious question, is that putting a player in a situation to succeed?

As it turned out, Littell pitched great. Unfortunately the losing run in the 3-2 game was due to his inherited runner scoring in the 7ᵗʰ inning when Littell departed with one out and a runner on first base. That seemed to be a smart move by Butera that didn’t work as his reliever, Tom Cosgrove, didn’t do his job. But this one could have ended differently if the offense, defense, and pitching did their job and a few decisions didn’t go by the script.

There were some other key plays that could haunt you if it was a playoff game. In that second inning after Palmquist put two runners on-base, the second run scored on a botched double-play ball (initially ruled a DP and overturned on replay). That made the score 2-0. These are the little things. The importance of a singular run.

The Nats tied the game as the entire scoring offense came from Dylan Crews who crushed a 2-run homer for the Nats only runs of the game. But there were other opportunities. You know, the typical. Walks not taken. Plays not executed. The Nats went 0-4 in RISP situations, and stranded seven runners on-base.

Luis Garcia Jr., in the 9ᵗʰ inning, thought he tied the game, like most of the 36,055 in attendance. Garcia smashed that ball with an exit velo of 107.4 mph and 39 degrees of launch angle. In the Statcast tracking era, that’s the only ball pulled to that part of the field that wasn’t a home run with that batted ball profile. According to Charlie Slowes on the radio call, the wind was blowing in. From Statcast, that’s a home run in 17 baseball stadiums based on the 362 feet of distance and park dimensions. If the wind didn’t blow it back, the ball might have traveled 20 feet further. Instead it was caught near the warning track.

Bad luck sure played a part of that loss, but as they say, sometimes you have to make your own luck.