With a Big Rally, Pirates End Lannan's Nice Run
Pirates 11, Nationals 4

By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 3, 2008; E01

There must be something that determines whether a pitcher wakes up one morning, his arm loose and lively, able to dominate hitters. Five days later, that same pitcher with that same arm rises, heads to the park, and his pitches have deserted him. This phenomenon has endured for . . . oh, say more than a century. John Lannan, all of 23, learned a bit about it last night.

The Washington Nationals' left-hander went from brilliant to beaten-up, all in a five-day span. He lasted just three innings in a 11-4 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates that not only ended a four-game Washington winning streak, but was the shortest of Lannan's 12 major league starts.

"I really stunk today," Lannan said.

Such oscillations are to be expected from a pitcher of Lannan's experience, which is to say, not much. After cruising to 21 straight scoreless innings -- a span that encompassed three previous starts and the first two innings last night -- he was throttled for six runs in the third. The big blow: José Bautista's three-run homer that capped the scoring, the first of Bautista's two blasts on the night.

That didn't even get Lannan to the night's other major event. With the Nationals trailing by six runs in the bottom of the fourth, Ryan Zimmerman led off with a bunt single. Just as he crossed the bag at first, he looked skyward down the right field line. There, two banks of lights had gone dark. Two more on the left field line did the same.

"I don't know what it is," team president Stan Kasten said, adding that the club had been installing new systems, and "it's related to that." Whatever the cause, both teams came off the field and sat idly in their dugouts, waiting out what became a 25-minute delay.

That, though, doesn't explain Lannan's struggles. At this point last year, he was pitching in Class A. But for a two-week stretch, he was the best member of what has been a surprisingly solid Washington rotation. As his confidence rose, his ERA plummeted to 2.64.

Against Pittsburgh, though, he wasn't sharp early on. He hit Nate McLouth with the first pitch he threw. He walked the leadoff man in the second, and by the time that inning ended, he had thrown 42 pitches. Still, he got through the first two frames without allowing a run to break Hector Carrasco's Nationals' mark for consecutive scoreless innings, set by the right-hander late in the 2005 season.

But when the streak ended, it did so with a thud. The Pirates' third featured nine batters, two singles, one double, Bautista's first home run, one walk and one error by second baseman Felipe López as he rushed to try to turn a double play.

The damage was enough to give the Pirates a 6-0 lead. Manager Manny Acta lifted Lannan for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the inning, by which time his ERA had risen to 3.74. With the Pirates fouling off his best offerings, it took him 85 pitches to get through those three innings. Two starts ago, he needed just 95 to throw seven scoreless frames.

"Three innings, I threw 80 pitches," Lannan said, a bit befuddled. "It felt like what I throw in seven innings bundled up in three."

Left-hander Mike O'Connor took over for Lannan in the fourth and gave up a run to make it 7-1. At that point, it seemed all but over. Even during this encouraging stretch -- the Nationals entered last night having won seven of their last nine -- the offense hasn't come around. Washington entered last night 14th or worse in the 16-team National League in runs scored, batting average, and slugging percentage.

"Which makes me happy," Acta said.

Come again?

"Because I know that it will come," Acta said of the offense. Four Washington regulars -- Zimmerman, Nick Johnson, Austin Kearns and Wily Mo Peña -- entered last night hitting .225 or lower.

"Those guys are not going to hit .220 -- three of them, four of them, five, as many of them that are struggling," Acta said. "We know that."

But the most interesting decision in the game came when the Nationals needed more offense. In the fourth inning -- after the lighting outage sent both teams back to their dugouts -- Peña hit a sacrifice fly and catcher Wil Nieves a two-run double, pulling the Nationals within 7-4.

From the stands, it seemed to be decision time. A single from a pinch hitter could have pulled the Nationals within two. For Acta, though, there was no decision.

"Not even if we had six guys on bases at that point we were going to pinch-hit for him," Acta said.

Acta has a strict rule that relievers do not pitch four straight days, and both Luis Ayala and closer Jon Rauch had thrown Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That left Acta with only O'Connor, Joel Hanrahan, Jesús Colome and Saul Rivera available for the entire night. O'Connor, Acta said, "had to go at least three to four innings."

So he hit for himself, and struck out. He then gave up Bautista's second home run in the fifth, then two more in the seventh. The Pirates responded by retiring 15 of the final 16 Nationals.

So Lannan was left as the loser for the first time in his last four starts. And he was left to wonder what might happen five days later, the next time he wakes up, comes to the ballpark, and is expected to pitch. Will he be lights out, as he was earlier in the week, and win? Or will his stuff desert him, and the Nationals be left with a loss?