Nationals starter Luis Atilano was roughed up and theNats couldn’t (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)
Braves 7, Nationals 6 (F/10): I know it’s still only May and the baseball season is a long and arduous journey. (Feel free to add your own platitude about the grandiosity of it all in the comments, if you feel so inclined.) But there’s more evidence than not that these Nationals of ours are a scrappy bunch. They showed it last night, when they came back three times from deficits to force extra innings. But a fourth comeback proved a task too difficult, and the Nats fell 7-6 — the first time Atlanta won a road game in eleven tries. Luis Atilano, who had produced two straight starts of six innings and had only allowed three combined earned runs in both, was touched a bit, giving up six runs on seven hits and walking five — and most of that even came after Atlanta’s next big thing, Jason Heyward, left the game in the second inning with a groin issue. But Ian Desmond, Ivan Rodriguez and Josh Willingham all chipped in to bail him out, each delivering hits to pull the Nationals up out of the well that Atilano kept tripping them into. So let’s be optimistic: despite Matt Capps’ first loss of the year (and, let’s be fair, 4.2 IP, three hits and one run is not too shabby a line for your relief corps) at least the Nationals proved that they’re more than capable this season of going punch for punch when presented with the challenge. Considering the way things have gone over the last couple of seasons, that’s not too shabby.
