Washington Nationals’ lineup for 1st of 2 with Seattle Mariners

Davey Martinez’s club put up just five hits and one run on San Diego Padres’ starter Sean Manaea over seven innings in the series finale in Petco Park, and after the 2-1 loss, the Washington Nationals’ fifth-year skipper talked to reporters about their plan going into the fourth of four with the Friars and how well he’d thought they’d executed it.

Manaea threw just 69 pitches in his seven innings of work, so were the Nationals’ hitters too aggressive against the lefty?

“No,” Martinez said. “We knew that he was going to pound the strike zone, we just got to get ready to hit the fastball. It seems like we were a little behind on some pitches, a little late. Just get up there and get ready to hit the fastball, and today we missed a lot of fastballs.”

Nationals’ hitters offered at 22 sinkers from Manaea, with just two swinging strikes, but they did take 13 of them for called strikes, and failed to do much of anything against the southpaw, outside of Nelson Cruz’s monster solo home run in the fourth.

Martinez talked after the loss about their seven games in two weeks against Juan Soto and Josh Bell, the former Nationals dealt to the Padres at the trade deadline.

“We came here, I thought we played really good baseball,” Martinez said after a series split in the Padres’ home. “To see those guys [Soto and Bell], you know, and like I said, we don’t see them anymore. Of course I’m going to pull for them, and wish them all the best, but we got to move on, we got a day off tomorrow and we’ve got two games in Seattle.”

HERE’S THE NATIONALS LINEUP FOR THE 1ST OF 2 WITH THE MARINERS: