WASHINGTON – The Braves could’ve used a win Wednesday night to at least temporarily salve some of the mounting disappointment and frustration of their early season.
Instead, they got more disappointment and frustration in a 3-0 loss to Washington, falling to 0-8 and dropping their 13th consecutive game at Nationals Park since the beginning of the 2015 season.
The 0-8 start is the Braves’ worst since they lost their first 10 games in 1988 in a 106-loss season.
“The game of baseball is a great game, it’s a humbling game,” Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “And right now we’re being humbled in a lot of different areas. But the great thing about our game also is, you go out again tomorrow or the next day and hopefully we can get a streak going.”
Matt Wisler (0-1) gave up only four hits and one walk in six innings, but two of those hits were fourth-inning home runs – a leadoff homer by Stephen Drew and a long two-run homer by Jayson Werth that pushed the lead to 3-0. Wisler has allowed seven runs in 12 2/3 innings over two starts, including a pair of three-run fourth innings.
“That one inning, that cost us at the game today,” Wisler said. “Just two mistake pitches, both up in the zone…. It’s been two innings pretty much that have cost me both my outings so far, so it’s just cleaning up that one inning, keeping it to at most one run instead of three.”
Braves catcher A.J. Pierzynski said, “He pitched really well. The two mistakes, obviously, to Werth and to Drew. But he was down most of the night, got a lot of ground ball, had a good slider, mixed his pitches really well. It was encouraging. But I’d just like to win a game. I feel like we’re playing well enough to win, it’s just something’s not there. Hopefully tomorrow’s the day.”
The Braves’ last win at Nationals Park was Sept. 10, 2014, when Aaron Harang was their starter. They are 9-26 in their past 35 overall games against the Nationals, after going 24-7 in the previous 31.
There was presumably good news for the Braves in the afternoon when the Nationals announced that Stephen Strasburg, who is 4-0 with a 0.38 ERA in his past four starts against Atlanta, was scratched due to illness. Instead the Braves would face Tanner Roark, who had been 0-5 with a 5.77 ERA in eight starts since his last win as a starter on June 16, 2015.
Roark (1-1) got straightened out against the Braves, allowing four hits and three walks in seven scoreless innings.
The Braves left the bases loaded when Wisler grounded out to end the second inning, then stranded two in scoring position when Freddie Freeman struck out looking to end the fifth inning.
“I thought we had good at-bats off Roark, we had a bunch of guys on base, had a few chances there, we just need to come up with a big hit,” Pierzynski said. “Unfortunately it didn’t work out tonight, they hit a couple of balls out of the park, and it just wasn’t meant to be. But those were encouraging signs.”
Freeman also struck out looking in the eighth inning and went 0-for-4 to drop his batting average to .080 (2-for-25).
