Nationals left searching for bullpen answers after latest close loss

When the Nationals opt for the platoon advantage, they get burned. When they throw arguably their best reliever, Clayton Beeter, on the mound, they still can’t win.

There are not many levers left for manager Blake Butera to pull with the bullpen. He just needs the guys he puts on the mound to record outs.

Saturday’s 4-2 loss to the Yankees was another gut-wrenching one for the Nationals, who entered the eighth inning with a 2-0 lead but, like 27 other times this season, couldn’t sustain it. Right-hander Orlando Ribalta entered and got Austin Wells to pop out.

After that, things quickly unraveled for the Nationals, who dropped to 48-48. Butera said the team is “searching right now.”

“I talked about after last night’s game, obviously reevaluating what we’re doing, and obviously today you saw made a little different approach there at the end. ... Wanted to give our best relievers a shot to help us win the game,” Butera said. “It didn’t go our way.”

Ribalta allowed a solo homer to Ryan McMahon on a 2-2 count. He walked Ben Rice on six pitches before he was replaced by Beeter to face left-hander Trent Grisham.

Beeter entered Saturday having held lefties to a .595 OPS. But, on a 1-1 count, Grisham got all of a fastball at the top of the zone for a go-ahead, two-run bomb to right field that elicited a rapturous response from Yankees fans in attendance.

Butera turned to his two best relievers, yet the outcome was still the same. Beeter said it’s hard not to think about the bullpen not delivering in key moments after games, but that, when he’s on the mound, he’s worried about attacking.

“We’re all competitors,” Beeter said. “We know how to get into the competitive mode out there. It definitely stings a lot worse because of what’s been going on afterwards.”

But the Yankees, the only team in the majors with more homers than the Nationals, weren’t done. Veteran Paul Goldschmidt hit a solo homer for the fourth run of the inning. Beeter then allowed a line-drive double before being replaced by lefty Matt Krook, who recorded the final two outs.

By the end of the four-run eighth inning, the air had been sucked out of Nationals Park. It was a deflating loss for the club in a season filled with tremendous highs and agonizing lows.

Is it a confidence issue for the group, given all that has transpired?

“I’m not sure,” Butera said. “Trying to figure that out. I told the guys again today after the game when we announced [left-hander Foster] Griffin as an All-Star — which is awesome — that all we’re gonna do is keep going. This is as resilient of a group as I’ve seen. They’ve been through a lot already just in the first half, and they seem to turn the page and come out ready to play the next day, no matter what. And that’s what they’re going to do again tomorrow."

There’s no reliable option in the bullpen for Butera in close games. He threw his two best right-handers out there Saturday and saw a lead turn into a deficit over the course of an inning.

Granted, the organization hasn’t invested much in the bullpen, opting to redistribute those funds into other parts of the team. The arms the Nationals are relying on are waiver claims and pitchers throwing in high-leverage spots for the first time in their careers, which isn’t uncommon for a team in the infancy of its rebuild.

This has complicated trade deadline plans because the offense has helped the team get ahead of schedule in some regards. The Nationals are four games back of a third wild-card spot. If they had closed out just a handful of those blown leads, maybe they’d have a rosier outlook.

Adding relievers at the trade deadline is a possibility, but president of baseball operations Paul Toboni has to weigh the value the organization would be sending out from the farm system to add to the present. But Toboni understands how infuriating this season has been.

“They’re watching every game,” Butera said of the front office. “They’re coming in after, and they understand. They know how frustrated we are. And, look, that’s out of my hands. My job is to do the best job I possibly can with what we have, and that’s that’s what I’m gonna keep doing no matter what.”

Butera is going to exhaust all options until the end of the season. With the Aug. 3 trade deadline approaching, it’s on Toboni and his staff to see if it’s feasible to acquire an arm without sending out a prospect they’re high on.

There are talented relievers on the market, but it would likely take significant prospect capital to acquire those high-leverage arms. In the offseason, Toboni opted not to spend on the bullpen, which is biting the team in the present.

In the eighth inning or later, Nationals pitchers are sporting a 6.47 ERA, the worst mark in baseball. Butera said it’s the team’s job to win as many games as it can and let the front office take care of what the roster looks like.

“There are only so many paths you can go down to do [upgrade the bullpen],” Toboni said. “And that was the decision that we made. It’s one that I obviously think a lot about, given how the the current year has gone, but I don’t want to say all that while implying that I don’t have hope and trust and belief in our current group, because I do.

“I think it’s just about getting the best out of them while also like, ‘Hey, we’re going to keep our ears out for ways to upgrade, and everyone knows that.”

What gives Toboni confidence in this bullpen group?

“I think part of it is just the people,” Toboni said. “It’s not easy for anyone, right, to see what they’re going through. But at the same time, when you see that they are doing everything in their power to get the most out of themselves to help the team, you see how much it hurts when it doesn’t go great, and they feel like they’ve let the team down, it’s no different feeling than like the feeling that I have or the feeling that Blake has.

“And I think it’s just easier to rally around someone when you see how much it means to them. We talk a lot about how you know when adversity hits, right? Is it going to pull the group apart, or is it going to bring the group closer together? And the guys that we have in our bullpen and on our team, when adversity hits, like they come closer together, and I don’t think that happens everywhere.”

This article has been updated.