Braves shut down by Nationals again, drop first home series

Offense was better found on the back of a milk cartoon for the Braves this weekend at Truist Park, where the NL East’s first-place team fell into a scoring rut and lost a three-game series to the Nationals.

A 2-1 loss Sunday followed a 2-0 loss Saturday and equaled the first series loss at home for the Braves in nine tries. Sunday’s defeat was also just the second in nine rubber games for the Braves (36-18) this season.

“It happens to good teams, happens to great teams,” Braves third baseman Austin Riley said about the squad’s offensive shortcomings the last two days.

Sunday’s game wasn’t without its scoring opportunities for the Braves, however, right down to the last at-bat.

Ozzie Albies led off the ninth with a single to right. Riley followed with a single to left putting runners at the corners and bringing the fans who persevered through a long day at the ballpark to life.

Left-hander Richard Lovelady came out of the bullpen and got Michael Harris II to fly out weakly to left, slowing momentum briefly. But then Eli White hit a rocket to second that could have been a game-ending double play - instead Nasim Nuñez could only knock it down allowing Albies to score and White to reach.

Ha-Seong Kim walked to load the bases for Chadwick Tromp.

Orlando Ribalta (S, 2) took the mound to face Friday night’s hero Tromp, who waved at a slider away for the inning’s second out. That left it up to Ronald Acuña Jr., who had his bat broken by a 2-2 sinker and a slow roller to first ended the game.

“Tough to figure out sometimes,” Braves manager Walt Weiss said after his team went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left nine men on base Sunday. “We we’re playing so well offensively. The tough thing is, we pitched well enough to sweep the series. We really did. But had a hard time putting anything together (offensively).”

In the eighth inning, Acuña Jr. walked with one out but was stuck at first base after that. Riley was stranded at second in a 1-0 game in the bottom of the seventh. The bases were left loaded in the fourth.

Frustrating for a team that has seemingly found the big hit, the clutch hit, throughout the early part of the season and as recently as Friday when they forced extra innings before winning in walk-off fashion.

The Braves next have an off day in Boston on Monday before starting a three-game series against the Red Sox on Tuesday.

“Never a bad off day,” Riley said. “Kind of tough couple days with some rain and stuff like that. So to get up there in Boston and be able to regroup, rest up and get ready for Boston will definitely be nice.”

Sunday’s game was delayed by rain for 88 minutes with no one out and two strikes on Nationals designated hitter Daylen Lile.

Reynaldo López finished off the rain-delayed seventh inning by getting three-up, three-down. He wasn’t as fortunate in the eighth as James Wood, who coaxed a one-out walk, came around to score on pinch-hitter Luis Garcia Jr.’s single to right.

The Nationals (27-27) gladly took what turned out to be the winning run.

Earlier, in a scoreless game through 3 1/2 innings, the Braves had something cooking in the fourth after Matt Olson doubled down the right field line and Albies beat out a chopper off the plate for an infield single. But after Riley struck out, and after Harris was hit on the right shoulder to load the base, White hit into a 6-4-3 double play.

That sequence would prove extra costly.

Lile began the fifth with a stand-up double off the right field wall and Jacob Young ripped a single to left. Nuñez’s RBI single to right gave the Nationals the lead.

That would be the only run Braves starter Martín Pérez would allow. The left-hander once again did his job by keeping the result hanging in the balance through 5 2/3 innings. He struck out two and walked two, worked around five hits and threw 86 pitches before Didier Fuentes got the final out of the sixth, a strikeout of Dylan Crews with a runner on first.

Pérez (2-3) lowered his ERA to 2.70.

Braves pitchers held the Nationals, who came into the weekend averaging 5.14 runs per game, to just eight runs in the three-game series.