Turn it around again, Washington Nationals

Washington’s 39-22 run since they dropped four straight on the road to the New York Mets between May 20-23, got them back into the race for a postseason berth, though they were just 3-7 in their last ten after dropping 2 of 3 in Arizona this past weekend, and suffering a third straight series loss.

After the work they did to get back in the hunt, second-year manager Davey Martinez told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale over the weekend that they would get back on track again and be there in the end.

“We’ll get it back together, we’ll be all right,’’ Martinez said in the article on the Nationals’ surge which was published on Monday.

Brian Dozier, who started slowly this season, told Nightengale the first 50 games were a punch in the mouth, Sean Doolittle said they hit rock bottom after getting swept in Citi Field in May, telling the reporter, “it was about as bad as it gets,” for the Nationals after the sweep by the Mets.

Trea Turner pointed to the arrival of Gerardo Parra as one of the things that sparked the run the Nationals went on, which began shortly after the veteran, who’d been released by San Francisco, joined the club.

“We’ve played really well since he got here,’’ Turner told USA Today’s reporters, “and that’s not by coincidence. He brings so much energy, but he’s playing so well, too.”

Turner has been playing well too, since returning from a 39-game stint on the Injured List (for a broken right index finger suffered in the fourth game of the 2019 campaign), with a .284/.343/.459 line over that stretch, and a 10-game hit streak heading into a three-game series with the Giants in Oracle Park last night.

Following the second loss in three games with the Arizona Diamondbacks this weekend, Turner said he thought he and his teammates would turn things around again.

“I think it’s baseball you know,” Turner said of the rough stretch after all the success.

“I think just the ebb and flow of the game and we’ve been playing good for a long time, put ourselves in a good spot, and now it’s time to finish.

“We’ve got to keep continuing what we did in the last two months and play a little bit better.

“I don’t think we’ve played bad by any means, but we’ve run into some good teams lately and they kind of make us pay.”

“Throw this one away, and come back tomorrow and be ready to go,” Patrick Corbin said after he struggled in the finale in Arizona.

“The Giants have been playing well, we know that, so just try to turn it back on.”

“We’ll get it back together, we will,” Martinez said after the Nationals’ loss in Chase Field.

“We’re battling back, we’re swinging. We’re hitting the balls pretty good. We scored five runs today, a bunch last night, like I said, we’ve got to get more consistent, we’ve got to have those shutdown innings again like we did when we were going really good and we’ll go from there.”

Erick Fedde impresses in Nationals’ 4-0 win over Giants:

Cody Glenn-USA TODAY Sports

LINK: Fedde throws 6.0 scoreless in Nationals’ 4-0 win

“They swung the bats, I mean they hit the ball hard, we battled back, we just couldn’t get that shutdown inning,” Martinez reiterated.

Martinez’s squad got six shutdown innings from starter Erick Fedde in the series opener with the Giants.

Fedde tossed six scoreless on 75 pitches, and new bullpen arm Daniel Hudson, veteran Fernando Rodney (another player who has provided a spark), and closer Sean Doolittle locked down the 4-0 win with a scoreless inning each.

“This team has gone through a lot,” their manager told USA Today’s Nightengale over the weekend. “We have a chance to do something special.’’