WASHINGTON • Whatever else had happened before Sunday afternoon's game against the Washington Nationals served as only a false bottom. The Cardinals, evaporating within a 10-game trip one of them described as nothing less than "humongous," found themselves overwhelmed by a last-place team that hadn't won consecutive games in four weeks.
The Nationals are going nowhere this season. Based on a 4-2 loss that capped their lost four-game series, the Cardinals looked interested in hitching a ride.
Without a dominant outing from Adam Wainwright (17-9), the Cardinals offered little response in 7 1/3 innings against Nationals lefthander John Lannan (6-6), who beat them for the first time in five career starts. They put four runners into scoring position but were 0 for five in those situations. The Nationals managed all the runs they needed in consecutive two-run rallies that turned on two-out hits off an out-of-sorts Wainwright.
Manager Tony La Russa offered a simple explanation to an increasingly baffling question: "They outplayed us. When you get outplayed, you get beat."
The Cardinals have manipulated their starting rotation to bring full force against the division-leading Cincinnati Reds in the upcoming Labor Day weekend series. In the meantime they've lost five of six and 10 of their last 14 games to fall a season-most five games out of first place. The Redbirds' 2-5 start to the current road swing has come against two last-place teams that exhibited little pulse before the Cardinals' arrival. They failed to lead in the series' last 17 innings against a Nats team that won consecutive games for the first time since July 30-31.
Sunday's loss dropped the Cardinals to 4-11 in their last five series against teams with losing records; they haven't won consecutive road series since April 21. They began the current tour by losing two of three to the woebegone Pittsburgh Pirates and now must finish against the problematic Houston Astros.
"It's a humongous trip and we didn't take care of business in Pittsburgh," right fielder Skip Schumaker said. "We didn't take care of business in Washington. That's no disrespect to any other team. It's just that if we want to get into the playoffs, these are big games."
"I can't really explain it. We've been terrible against bad teams all year," Wainwright admitted. "I'm not saying they're a bad team because they're a dangerous team. But teams with sub-.500 records we've played terrible against all year. And we just did it again today."
"We've got to keep going. We've got no other choice," said left fielder Matt Holliday. "You come to the park every day. You come to win a game. At the end of the season you evaluate how you played."
The Cardinals' task is complicated further by dropping three games back in the wild-card race. "We've got to start winning some games. It's really pretty simple," La Russa said.
"We were up five games earlier in the season," said Wainwright. "I remember they were up three games and five games later we were up two games. Then five games later they were back up. It's been seesaw all year long. I don't expect it to be any different the rest of the way."
A front office and a manager who insisted their first-place team had no chance of winning its division without sacrificing right fielder Ryan Ludwick in a three-team trade for starting pitcher Jake Westbrook now find themselves groping to explain an abrupt fade.
The Cardinals hoped to hang on by fortifying their greatest strength, their starting rotation. But beginning Aug. 15 — the same day they fell from a first-place tie — the Cardinals have received six quality starts in 13 games. A rotation still leading the National League with 78 quality starts has failed to go beyond the sixth inning in nine of the last 13 games. The starters carry a 4.50 ERA in that span, which includes rookie Jaime Garcia's 20 1/3 innings without an earned run. Minus Garcia, the remaining four starters carry a 6.12 ERA in nine starts.
Wainwright lost a third consecutive start for the first time in his career. An elevated pitch count forced him out after five innings, tying his second-briefest appearance this season.
Five days after fumbling an early two-run lead in Pittsburgh, Wainwright took second-inning damage when Lannan dropped a hit in front of Holliday to score one run. A second scored when Holliday overran the ball for a double.
"It's just the kind of things you don't see happen, happen," said Schumaker. "That's how you lose games."
The Nationals scored with more conventional means in the third inning when right fielder Michael Morse continued a monster series with a two-run home run following a two-out walk.
Wainwright "wasn't himself today," La Russa noted. "He wasn't as sharp, as strong. It's just one of those days. It happens during the course of all the starts you take."
The Cardinals entered Sunday second in team batting and third in on-base percentage but ranked only seventh in runs. An overall impressive run differential has done them little good in close games: The Cardinals dropped to 1-8 this month in one- and two-run games.
"We didn't take anything away from (Lannan)," La Russa said, "and we gave him a lot of stuff. We're better than that."
"We need to take better at-bats," summarized Holliday, who ran his hitting streak to 11 games.
The combination suggests a team that has failed to exploit situations following the subtraction of Ludwick's power bat.
Entering the series, La Russa responded to a question about the team's roster strength by insisting, "We have enough."
The last four games raised the question: Enough, exactly, for what?
