The Nationals enter the weekend needing reverse some serious negative momentum. Thursday night’s 6-2 loss to the Cardinals in St. Louis made for five straight. The Nats haven’t led in a game since late Sunday, a streak now at 38 innings—during which they’ve been outscored 23-10. They now trail the Mets by 7.5 games in the NL East.

Last night, recent call-up Michael O’Conner made an emergency start as John Patterson nurses his sore forearm. O’Conner pitched well, but had little margin for error against the St. Louis offensive juggernaut. Ryan Zimmerman’s first error of the season with two outs in the 1st inning created just enough of an opening for the Cards, and Jim Edmonds jumped on it, driving in three runs with a shot to right and putting the Nats in yet another early hole.

Though O’Conner recovered well and pitched through the 5th, the Nats couldn’t recover against former Oriole Sidney Ponson who spread five hits and two runs over 6 2/3 innings to go 3-0 on the year. Brian Schneider’s two-run double in the 7th provided the Nats’ only offense, but the Cardinals responded with two runs of their own of Gary Majewski, putting them back up by three. The Nats now look to the weekend with quite a pitching conundrum.

Flickr photo by Scott Ableman, used with permission. See the original photo here.