Washington Nationals manager Blake Butera has said recently that he can live with solo homers. Allowing one run usually won’t put a team in a big hole; it’s the homers with runners on base that sink a team.

​But the four solo homers right-hander Zack Littell allowed Wednesday proved to be too much. The long ball, combined with a silent offensive performance, resulted in the Nationals’ 6-2 loss against the Royals.

The Nationals (39-36) won their fourth straight series, but in each one they could not complete the sweep.

“Great to win a series, but at the end of the day, we want to win every game we possibly can,” Butera said. “So, leaving here without finishing the series, we feel like we didn’t finish our business.”

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​But this loss isn’t solely on Littell, who allowed four runs on seven hits over five innings. The offense, which is the backbone of this team, also didn’t show up and was dominated by Royals starter Luinder Avila, who recorded two outs and allowed eight runs in his previous start against the Houston Astros.

Avila was able to get ahead in counts, and his fastball sat at 96.5 mph while his slider was at 89 mph.

​The Nationals were particularly aggressive against Avila, who didn’t have pinpoint command yet faced the minimum number of hitters in an inning three times Wednesday. The top of the Nationals’ lineup — James Wood, Luís Garcia Jr. and Curtis Mead — combined to go 0-for-10 with one walk.

“I feel like our plan was fine,” Wood said. “I just don’t think we executed, partially because of him.”

Just 36% of Avila’s pitches were thrown in the zone, but the Nationals didn’t draw their first free pass until the sixth inning when Mead drew a five-pitch walk that ended Avila’s outing.

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CJ Abrams’ two-out RBI double off reliever Matt Strahm in the sixth scored the first run of the day for the Nationals. Dylan Crews’ RBI single drove in Abrams and cut the deficit to 6-2, but Crews was ruled out at second base and ended the inning.

The offense totaled just six hits in Wednesday’s loss.

​In his last start, Littell struggled to put away the Mariners. He wasn’t getting hitters to chase his pitches out of the zone, and the Mariners’ lineup fouled off pitches incessantly. On Wednesday, the Royals chased on just 21% of Littell’s pitches, forcing him more in the zone where they were able to capitalize. All but one of the homers Littell allowed were on pitches in the zone.

​The right-hander is prone to allowing home runs, but he has worked with the pitching coaches to curb that weak spot in his game. But after Wednesday, Littell is tied with Cubs starter Jameson Taillon for the league lead in home runs allowed (20). Littell was frustrated in his performance because he felt the team left a win on the table against the Royals.

“That’s a series we’d love to have swept right there,” he said. “Our job as a starter is to set the tone, and today I didn’t do that. It’s hard to play from behind like that, especially when it’s four [homers], where it feels like we’re getting our teeth kicked in early.”

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He said that he was “due” for one of these performances, and that his delivery was off on the mound.

“You have these days across 30 starts, where you just start a little bit out of sync,” Littell said. “Right away, [I] could tell that I didn’t have it, but still gotta go out there and get outs, just dug a little bit of a hole that we couldn’t get out of.”

Mitchell Parker allowed two runs on three hits with one walk in his first outing since allowing the walk-off grand slam against the Giants.

​Now, the Nationals head into a three-game matchup against a Rays team that is coming off a close series loss against the Dodgers, but has otherwise returned to being one of the premier teams in the American League, and a four-game series next week against a surging Phillies team.

Wood said the mentality doesn’t change despite facing two teams angling for a postseason spot.

“Just be ourselves, play our brand of baseball and I feel like we’ll be in a good spot,” he said.