Washington Nationals’ lineup for 3rd of 4 with the Atlanta Braves

Last night’s loss was Washington’s eighth in a row overall, their eighth straight to Atlanta’s Braves this season, and 13th consecutive loss to their NL East rivals at home in Nationals Park.

Wanna feel worse about all this? Who said, “Yes!”?

Anyway, via the Nationals’ post game notes:

“The Braves’ 13 game winning streak at Nationals Park is the longest by any team in the stadium’s history…Nationals Park is one of 12 parks in Major League Baseball where the home team does not outright hold the stadium’s longest win streak.”

Ouch.

MASN’s Mark Zuckerman added to the pile:

“[The Nationals] are a team that has lost 24 of its last 26 games to division opponents. And they are a team that has lost 14 of its last 15 games overall.

“That last cover-your-eyes fact may be the toughest to accept of all, because this is the first team in Nationals history to lose 14 of 15 within a single season.”

Manager Davey Martinez’s take on all this after last night’s 8-4 loss to the Braves and his thoughts on where the Nationals find themselves right now?

“They’ve got to understand that this organization was a winner for a long time,” Martinez said, as quoted on MASN.

“This happens to the best of the best. But we’ve got to battle back. We’ve got to keep playing.

“Forget about what happened today, come back tomorrow and go 1-0. That’s the mentality.”

The Nationals scored three in the ninth and loaded the bases to bring the tying run to the plate before the end of the club’s eighth straight loss.

“None of these guys likes that we’re losing,” Martinez said. “That’s why you see them continue to play the way they’re playing at the end of games, trying to come back. But we’ve got to come out and put the pressure on the other team, and try to score first and go from there. We’ve got to do that. When we start doing that, things will turn around for us.”

“It’s tough and I can tell it wears on the guys, you know,” he added, “but they battled back, we’ve been doing that quite a bit. So like I said, we got to keep our heads up.

Will today be the day the Nationals end all these streaks? Let’s see…

HERE’S THE NATIONALS’ LINEUP FOR THE 3RD OF 4 WITH THE BRAVES: