Washington Nationals’ lineup vs New York Yankees in tonight’s makeup matchup...

With losses in six of their last eight and three straight overall, the Washington Nationals are back home in the nation’s capital for a game-plus with the New York Yankees tonight as the teams who split two in Yankee Stadium last week make up their suspended and rained out games from last month.

First they played the final three innings of the suspended game which was tied at 3-3 when the rain came back on May 15th, then a half an hour after the completion of that game they’ll go at it again in the makeup matchup for the 5/16 rainout.

[ed. note - “The Nationals took the first game, 5-3, so tonight’s matchup starts at 6:45 PM.”]

Davey Martinez’s squad avoided a fourth straight loss with this afternoon’s win (if that’s how this works with the whole rescheduled games thing) after the Nationals got swept in three in a row this past weekend in Toronto, dropping all three games against the Blue Jays to end a five-game trip which saw Washington get shut out in two of five games, though they showed signs of life at the plate in the Rogers Centre.

“You never want to get swept, but I’m glad we swung the bats today,” Martinez said after the 8-6 loss on Sunday.

“We haven’t been swinging very well,” he added, “... and [Daniel] Murphy had good at bats, [Anthony] Rendon had good at bats, so I’ll take our chances every time we score six runs, I really will, so I’m proud of them. They didn’t give up, they fought the whole game.”

Ryan Madson, who gave up back-to-back home runs in the eighth that decided the finale, said they would move past the series sweep and get back at it against the Yankees.

“It’s part of the season,” Madson said of the sweep.

“It’s part of a season you’re going to go through. I don’t even think it’s that bad. Our personalities are good, attitudes are good, and we just want to play again tomorrow.”

Tanner Roark, who went just four innings on Sunday afternoon, giving up eight hits, two walks, and four earned runs, finally received some support in one of his outings, but he threw 97 pitches to the 23 batters he faced in a rough outing.

“We hit very, very well today. We played defense well,” Roark said, as quoted by Chelsea Janes of the Washington Post. “Just one of those series, tough series.”

They can turn things around in a hurry with two with tonight.

HERE’S THE NATIONALS’ LINEUP FOR THE MATCHUP WITH THE YANKEES: