Washington Nationals news & notes: Nats walloped by Padres, 13-3 in opener in San Diego...

Corbin in SD:

Last time out, for the second time in three starts, Patrick Corbin gave up 11 hits, but neither the starter or his manager were too concerned about that aspect of his outing in Nationals Park.

“You make some good pitches, and they’re swinging early,” Corbin said of the results in his 102-pitch, six-inning start, in what ended up a 4-2 loss to the Miami Marlins.

“You can’t do much about some bloopers or some ground balls that get by,” the lefty added.

“One of those days where they’re swinging early, and those balls get through, something like that happens.”

“Just a lot of singles,” manager Davey Martinez told reporters. “I thought he threw the ball well. Walk, he walked the leadoff hitter [in the third], that guy ended up scoring, but they moved the baseball, put the ball in play.

“As we know, sometimes they’re going to go up there and swing at the first pitch because they know he’s around the plate, he throws strikes, and they got some base hits that way, but he gave us six strong innings.”

The outing extended a four-start winless streak for the veteran, who put up a 4.91 ERA, 6.00 FIP, and a .355/.421/.538 line against in 22 IP over that stretch.

Looking to snap the winless streak, Corbin ... gave up a leadoff home run to center field in the first at-bat of the Nationals’ series opener with the Padres in San Diego’s Petco Park.

Ha-Seong Kim hit a 1-1 sinker up in the middle of the zone out to center, 411 ft. for his 7th of the season and a 1-0 lead for the home team.

Corbin kept it there through four, but a leadoff single by Jake Cronenworth (on a 1-0 sinker inside), a hit-by-pitch on Trent Grisham, (on an 0-1 sinker too far inside), a passed ball, and the two-run single by Kim which followed put the Padres up 3-0 on the southpaw and the Nats.

Walks to Fernando Tatis, Jr. and Juan Soto loaded the bases, for Manny Machado, with one out, and a run scored on a grounder up the middle on which a creative glove flip from Luis García got the Nationals the second out, 4-0. Xander Bogaerts stepped in next and hit a 3-run home run to left-center. 404 ft. 7-0 Padres. Middle-middle 1-1 changeup.

KEY MOMENTS:

• CJ Abrams went down for a two-strike curve, and lined it to right for a one-out double in the top of the third, with the Nationals trailing, 1-0. Derek Hill, who’d reached on an infield single an at-bat earlier, took third on Abrams’ 13th two-base hit of the season, but Padres’ starter Joe Musgrove struck Lane Thomas out and Luis García grounded out to strand the runners.

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• Lane Thomas started the series in San Diego with a 10-game hit streak going, over which he was 15 for 40 (.375 AVG) with six doubles, three home runs, seven RBIs, a walk, and eight runs scored in that stretch. Thomas went 0 for 3 with two Ks the first three times up against Padres’ starter Joe Musgrove, and he was lifted from the game when it got out of hand.

• Jeimer Candelario to left field with two outs in the sixth, and the Nationals trailing 7-0, and scored on an RBI single by Joey Meneses, who broke up Musgrove’s shutout bid with a liner off a 1-0 cutter low and away, 7-1.

BULLPEN ACTION:

Joe La Sorsa made his Nationals debut in the bottom of the sixth, retiring two batters, but a single by Trent Grisham ended his outing. Chad Kuhl took over on the mound ... and got out No. 3 on a fly to the track in center, still 7-1 Padres.

Kuhl gave up four more runs before he was lifted in the seventh inning, 11-1 San Diego.

Juan Soto ht a two-run shot off Thaddeus Ward in the bottom of the eighth, 13-1.

Michael Chavis hit a pinch hit home run off Padres’ lefty Ray Kerr in the ninth, and Derek Hill doubled and scored on an RBI double by CJ Abrams, 13-3.

BACK PAGE - LINE CROSSED:

Prior to the one-off makeup game with the D-backs in D.C. on Thursday, Davey Martinez, in his pregame press conference, talked about the need for the Nationals to play clean ball if they’re going to compete on a nightly basis.

His club went out and played something short of clean baseball, giving Arizona more than 27 outs, and four unearned runs in a 5-3 loss.

Asked if there was a line that had to be crossed before he would address mistakes/sloppy play with his club, Martinez said they’d already crossed it.

“That line has been crossed. It really has,” the sixth-year skipper said.

Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images

“I have my conversations. And I’ll have a conversation tomorrow as well. But in order for us to get better and to compete and compete with really good teams, we’ve got to clean it up. We really do. There’s times when we play really good. There’s times when we play good teams really, really well. And if we happen to get beat, we get beat. That’s part of it. But to beat ourselves, that’s not who we are, that’s not — I won’t allow that. That’s not acceptable. So there will definitely be conversations tomorrow about it. But we definitely got to keep it up and we’ll stay on these guys to get better at it.”

The loss was the Nats’ 14th in 18 games played this month. And it was particularly frustrating for the manager because the mistakes really cost them in the end.

“You can’t give good teams 28-29 outs,” he said, reiterating his mantra/message. “You can’t.

“I think we had four unearned runs today. Take those away and we’re right in the ballgame.

“So, we gotta get better at that, we really do. And if we do that, we’re going to be able to compete.

“So we got to just come back tomorrow like I said, and just play a good, clean baseball game and see where we’re at.”