Washington Nationals’ lineup for the series finale with the Baltimore Orioles

Back-to-back losses to the now-33-64 Baltimore Orioles was not how the 45-52 Washington Nationals expected this weekend to start, but that’s how it started, so...

“We came in hoping to win 2 out of 3,” Davey Martinez said after last night’s 5-3 loss to the Orioles, “... now I turn to trying to come out tomorrow, win a game tomorrow, and then go from there.”

Juan Soto hit a solo home run in the seventh to get the Nationals on the board, down 5-1 at that point, then Josh Harrison doubled to start the eighth, and two HBPs loaded them up in front of Trea Turner, who drove two in with a single to center field, but the three runs were all the club could manage.

“Once again our offense today was not there,” Martinez said after his team lost 6-1 in the first game of the series as well.

“I thought we were going to break out late in the game, but it just wasn’t there early.”

Though they’ve lost two to a struggling Orioles team, and three straight overall, Martinez isn’t waving a white flag on the season yet.

“We still got a lot of baseball left, we really do,” he said. “Our offense needs to get it going again. We were swinging the bat so well, and now all of a sudden we’re not. So we got to get back to staying in the middle of the field, getting ready early, and just trying not to do too much and just hit line drives in gaps and try not to do a whole lot.

“You saw Soto there after rolling over a couple balls, staying on a ball and driving it to left field. Turner, staying on balls and driving them to right-center field. We got to see more of that from all the guys.”

How do the Nationals, as a team, get back to hitting the ball like they were a few weeks ago?

“We were swinging the bat well as a team, as a whole, now we got to get back to that,” the skipper said, “... and the thing is not to press, to go up there, relax, see the balls where you think you can hit and put good swings on them. I’ve seen a lot of good swings, we’re fouling a lot of balls of that we should be hitting, and uncharacteristic, we’re swinging at a lot of balls outside the zone, breaking balls outside the zone, so we’ve got to get the ball back in the zone where we can hit it and have good at bats.”

They’ll try again today, in the series finale with the Orioles in Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

HERE’S THE NATIONALS’ LINEUP FOR THE FINALE WITH THE O’S: