CHICAGO — Michael Busch hit a routine pop-up into the afternoon sky that should’ve ended the second inning. Yet the longer the baseball hung in the air the more indecision the Nationals’ fielders exhibited.

Left fielder Daylen Lile jogged in. Shortstop Nasim Nuñez backpedaled. Both called for the ball, but neither saw the other. They collided and fell. The ball trickled away in the grass. The Chicago Cubs fans at Wrigley Field rose to their feet and heckled. And a bad inning only got worse.

Nuñez’s error in the Nationals’ 10-2 loss Saturday resulted in two runs scoring in a four-run inning defined by a pair of weakly hit fly balls that found grass instead of leather.

“I was thinking about how we could have prevented that or just caught the ball, but it was honestly one of them situations where it’s just like, ‘That just happens,’” Nuñez said.

Nuñez said he thought the ball was going to stay in the infield. The wind had other plans.

Every team practices fielding balls in no man’s land during spring training. The hope is to avoid problems once the regular season begins.

Nothing, though, compares to communicating in a stadium full of crazed fans. Nuñez said he and Lile couldn’t hear each other.

“Nothing like the actual game,” Nuñez said. “You could go and call the ball when nobody’s in the stands, and of course everybody is going to move ... We’ll figure it out. It’s not going to happen too often.”

Still, learning to work through the kinks and make those routine plays will be vital for a young team that needs to support its inexperienced pitching staff in a developmental season.

“It hurts,” said manager Blake Butera, who called the play a miscommunication. “Huge credit to Miles [Mikolas] to just continue to pitch and limit damage. But, yeah, a play we need to make and we’ll continue to work on it and fix.”

Earlier in the frame, Mikolas — making his first start for the Nationals (1-1) — walked two hitters. The first scored on a Matt Shaw sacrifice fly. The second scored on another ball in no man’s land.

Miguel Amaya hit a weak fly ball down the right field line with an expected batting average of .170. The ball landed among right fielder James Wood, second baseman Jorbit Vivas and first baseman Luis García Jr., who attempted to make an over-the-shoulder basket catch. Nuñez’s error followed.

After the game, Mikolas shifted blame from his defense onto himself. The Cubs stole three bases; he felt he could’ve controlled the running game more effectively. He lost his release point on his three walks. All three hitters scored.

“Not smart of me to walk two guys right there and then a couple of infield bloopy hits,” Mikolas said. “That’s the one that’s probably going to bug me the most: that second inning right there walking those two guys.”

Still, the Nationals finished 33 outs below average in 2025, second worst in the majors behind the Los Angeles Angels. They have made a concerted effort this spring to improve their defense.

They’ve shuffled their corner outfielders between positions. They raved about how infielders have improved their prepitch stances and reaction times. Still, Saturday’s game served as a reminder that progress isn’t always linear, especially with the elements playing a factor.

“When you think you’re loud, you got to be a little bit louder,” Wood said. “The fans here, they’re into the game and they’re trying to do everything they can to help their team win. You just got to be extra disciplined and communicate.”

Wood hit a solo home run off Cade Horton, his first homer of the season, in the fourth inning to get the Nationals on the board. Nuñez tacked on an RBI single in the fifth, though Amaya launched a solo homer in the bottom of the frame off Mikolas to give the Cubs a four-run cushion.

The 37-year-old righty issued a free pass to Pete Crow-Armstrong, who scored on a Nico Hoerner double to pad Chicago’s lead to 6-2.

One inning later, left-hander Ken Waldichuk entered with two runners on to face Ian Happ. Happ launched the first pitch Waldichuck threw as a National into the left field seats.

The next three hitters Waldichuk faced reached base. With the bases loaded, he walked Carson Kelly and put his head down — a sequence that served as a microcosm of the Nationals’ struggles.

This article has been updated.