It looked for a moment like the Colorado Rockies might sneak a win in Washington on a day when Max Scherzer looked like exactly what he is; one of the very best pitchers in all of baseball.

But Charlies Blackmon’s first-inning, two-run home run—on his first swing back from missing four of five games with back and right quad tightness—would not hold up in the 6-2 loss on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the nation’s capital.

Jon Gray continues to be haunted by the one inning that gets away. This time, it came in the sixth when a couple of bloop hits led to a couple of hard line drives from Matt Weiters—who had provided Washington’s only run in the game to that point with a homer—and youngster Moises Sierra. The inning even featured Bryce Harper sliding in underneath a glove toss from first baseman Ian Desmond after a Michael Taylor bunt.

There was plenty of bad luck again but Gray did a poor job of minimizing the damage, especially losing focus against Sierra on a 2-2 count and floating a pitch right down the middle to a guy who is hitting below .200.

Gray isn’t getting the same whiff action on his slider that he has previously in his career and these lapses in focus certainly aren’t helping matters. He has plenty of time to turn things around but with now four of his last five outings looking nothing like the ace-like stuff we’ve come to expect from him, there is going to be some concern.

With Scherzer setting down 20 straight after the Blackmon homer and the Rockies only recording two hits in the game—the other coming from Ryan McMahon—that inning was the decider for the Nationals win.

Final Stats:

Rockies:

Jon Gray: 5.2 IP, 8 H, 5 ER (6.23 ERA), 1 BB, 6 K

Antonio Senzatela: 0.1, 2 H, 1 ER

Chris Rusin: 1.2 IP, 2 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 1 K

Charlie Blackmon: 1-for-4, 1 R, 2 RBI, HR, 3 K

Ryan McMahon: 1-for-3, 2 K

Nationals:

Max Scherzer: 7 IP, 1 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 11 K

What’s Next:

The Rockies aim to win the series, the National try to split it on Sunday afternoon… or morning depending on where you are. First pitch is at 11:05 Mountain Time. Tyler Anderson takes on Stephen Strasburg.