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A rocky start for Jon Lester puts the Nationals behind early in an 11-2 loss to the Marlins - The Washington Post

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MIAMI — Jon Lester faced 16 batters Friday night, and nine reached base. Seven touched home plate, too. Lester had little to no command and no feel for his off-speed pitches, and he threw one change-up about 55 feet, a whole human short of Yan Gomes’s catcher’s mitt. He didn’t have it, plain and simple, and so the Washington Nationals fell to the Marlins, 11-2, to even a four-game series and snap their winning streak at five.

There were more ways to illustrate Lester’s struggles in LoanDepot Park. Of the Marlins’ 25 swings against him, only two ended with a whiff. Otherwise, most of their contact was loud and costly, including a three-run homer for Miguel Rojas in the first. In the third, Lester’s final inning, he yielded a leadoff double to Garrett Cooper, an RBI single to Rojas and an RBI double to Jesús Sánchez. Manager Dave Martinez hooked him once Jorge Alfaro bounced to shortstop for the first out of the frame.

Lester made it 2⅓ innings, allowed a season-high seven earned runs and walked three. He threw just 64 pitches — 35 strikes, 29 balls — and his ERA shot to 4.99. But the issues with the outing were not confined to one crooked, frustrating loss to the last-place Marlins. They fueled bigger questions for these Nationals, who have played themselves into the National League East mix over the past two weeks: What’s the optimal rotation for the most important stretch of their season? And is Lester in that group, given another blowup after a string of semi-encouraging starts?

“It should be better than this,” Lester said, shaking his head. “It should be a little more consistent than this, is what I should say, as opposed to better. You’re going to have bumps in the road. You’re going to have starts where you have to grind through. But the simple fact of me just going from one start pitching well, going deeper into the game, to the next start really not doing a whole lot, it’s very, very frustrating.

“It’s not only frustrating for me; it’s I’m sure frustrating for my teammates and frustrating for Davey. Puts our bullpen in a bad situation. That’s what I’ve been waiting on: Okay, I have a good one; let’s get the next one. The next one doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be great. It needs to be quality.”

On the plus side for Washington, Kyle Schwarber homered again, his 12th in 12 games, and added two singles in the leadoff spot. He has nine homers in six games, one shy of the major league record. Once Lester exited, Justin Miller, Paolo Espino, Sam Clay and Jefry Rodriguez covered the final 5⅔ innings for the Nationals (36-37). They also had to pinch-hit starter Joe Ross for Miller in the third because first baseman Josh Bell was unavailable for the second straight night because of right oblique soreness.

But Bell underwent an MRI exam Friday, and Martinez said it was clean and assured that he will be in Saturday’s lineup. Without him in the order, Marlins starter Pablo López matched a career high with nine strikeouts, a very sharp contrast to Lester’s outing. The 37-year-old lefty was coming off the best start of his first year with the Nationals. But most of his season has been rocky, beginning with spending almost all of April on the coronavirus-related injured list.

“Until today, he’s kept us in ballgames,” Martinez said, rejecting any larger concerns with Lester. “He gives up one or two runs, three runs. But today was just uncharacteristic of him, throwing so many balls. That was it. When he gets behind like that, you’re going to get hit, you’re going to get whacked around a little bit.”

He has completed six innings in just two of 11 starts. His fastballs are in the high 80s and require pinpoint command to be effective. He is fixed in the rotation because, aside from a guaranteed deal, the Nationals are down Stephen Strasburg, who’s on the injured list with nerve irritation in his neck and has only thrown lightly, day after day, without stepping on the mound. Whenever Strasburg returns, Washington should have an interesting choice among Lester, Ross and Erick Fedde for its fourth and fifth starter spots.

The easy path would be to keep riding Lester on merit alone, but it could be moot, at least for a while still if Strasburg’s recovery remains slow. His IL stint is nearly a month old. The Nationals have promised to be extra careful — have you heard that before? — given his injury history and the time of year. Yet right now, with a gantlet of games against the New York Mets, Tampa Bay Rays, Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants heading into the all-star break, Fedde and Ross have shown more consistency and upside than Lester.

“I feel like when I do have a good one, the next one isn’t great,” Lester said of running hot and cold this season. “I don’t know what the reason for that is. If I did, I would obviously try to make the next one better. I don’t know; it’s just kind of the trend I’ve been in. … Physically, I feel good. Maybe, just like any other night, you’re not always going to be perfect mechanically. But just tonight was just, for whatever reason, was just off. Never felt comfortable.”

Fedde threw 20 consecutive scoreless innings before getting knocked around by the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday. Ross has logged seven or more innings in two of his past three outings. Lester, on the other hand, was improving throughout June, even inching into form, until the Marlins discarded him in the third inning Friday.

It was the latest hiccup in a season chock full of them. Time will tell if it foreshadowed change.

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