The Nationals had just throttled the Rockies 7-3 the night before, with Andres Chaparro, CJ Abrams and Jacob Young all going deep, so Washington rolled into this one looking to salt away the series. Coors had other ideas.
Washington jumped out 2-0 in the first, but Colorado answered with a four-run second and never let the Nationals pull away again. Washington tacked on single runs across four different innings, but every answer from Colorado was there waiting -- a run in the fourth, fifth and sixth kept the Rockies in front, and a Nationals run in the seventh wasn't enough to flip it. The Nationals got Colorado's lead down to one with a run in the ninth, but couldn't complete the comeback.
It's the kind of loss that stings more than it should for a team fighting to stay above .500 -- Washington is 51-50 and still very much in the thick of things, while Colorado, sitting at 40-62, needed exactly this type of night to feel good about anything right now. The Nationals get a shot to close the series Wednesday, and after Tuesday's back-and-forth, nobody in that dugout wants to hear the word 'Coors' again for a while.