Nats are younger, a little more restless, and handled by Orioles, 7-3

Corbin, one of the club’s few constants, allowed five runs on eight hits in five rocky innings. His command was erratic, forcing him to throw too many strikes in hitters’ counts. The Nationals managed two homers off Orioles starter Asher Wojciechowski — one from Juan Soto, the other from Trea Turner — and not much else under a steady mist.

The loss dropped them to 7-11 with a chance to take the series here Sunday. The Orioles (12-8) are 4-1 against Washington this season after losing 108 games in 2019.

“I wasn’t getting ahead of batters like I normally do,” Corbin said. “When you’re not doing that, you just put yourself in tough situations, and I didn’t figure it out all night, really. It was just one of those games.”

A year ago, as the Nationals surged through summer, one of their many turns toward a World Series title, it was often noted that they had baseball’s oldest roster. General Manager Mike Rizzo saw age as a market inefficiency. With Howie Kendrick, Asdrúbal Cabrera, Ryan Zimmerman and Kurt Suzuki, he milked the last bits of late-career production. With Gerardo Parra, Javy Guerra and Fernando Rodney, he added veteran voices to the clubhouse. Rodney, at 42, even stuck for the entire run.

But the team has a new complexion in 2020. Kendrick, Cabrera, Suzuki, Max Scherzer and Aníbal Sánchez still juice the average age. Recent injuries, though, have brought another wave of prospects to the majors. Soto, Victor Robles and Carter Kieboom are no longer the only “kids” in the mix.

Luis García, 20, the youngest player in the majors, is now the new regular second baseman after Starlin Castro broke his right wrist Friday. Seth Romero, 24, is the lone left-hander in the bullpen after Sean Doolittle and Sam Freeman went to the injured list this past week. And Erick Fedde, 27, is the youngest starter in Washington’s rotation. He’s filling Stephen Strasburg’s spot with Strasburg on the 10-day IL with carpal tunnel neuritis in his right hand.

Once García was promoted in Castro’s place Friday, Manager Dave Martinez asked Turner if he felt old. The shortstop is only 27. Yet the combined ages of García, Soto (21), Kieboom (22) and Robles (23) is still eight years younger than Ted Lerner, the Nationals’ founding owner. The oddest part of the question to Turner is that it was somewhat justified.

“It’s weird,” Turner said with a grin. “I finally got used to playing with Juan, even though he’s still 21 or whatever it is. But then the next one, and the next one, and the next one. We just got a lot of guys down there who are really good baseball players and can help us out at this level. It doesn’t matter how old they are.”

There were slight growing pains in the loss. There will be more moving forward. After the Orioles leaped ahead by the third, tagging Corbin for four early runs, Kieboom let a sharp grounder skip beneath his glove. A batter later, García’s attempt to complete a double play sailed wide of first. Both are natural shortstops adapting to relatively unfamiliar positions. García later flashed his potential with a nifty catch while falling down in shallow right.

Soto had again tried to kick his team into motion. Wojciechowski had been largely — and smartly — avoiding his bat. He walked Soto on five pitches in the first. He threw two sliders well inside to start their matchup in the fourth. The mistake was his next pitch, a hanging curve at the bottom of the strike zone. And Soto didn’t miss it.

Center fielder Andrew ­Velazquez jogged under the ball until his cleats hit the warning track. It landed in Baltimore’s bullpen, with the relievers, arms folded and nodding, making no move to pick it up. That was Soto’s sixth home run in 10 games. He missed the first 10 days of the season, quarantined after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, but has shown zero rust.

“That’s who he is,” Martinez said of Soto consistently slugging the other way. “When he gets in trouble, he starts trying to pull everything. And I think he’s making a conscious effort right now to really stay in the middle of the field.”

Corbin had been solid through three starts, with a high strikeout rate and sharp control. But both got away from the left-hander against the Orioles, who made contact on 44 of their 54 swings. He couldn’t set up his patented slider. He logged just two strikeouts despite averaging 10 per nine innings heading into the game.

Baltimore built its lead on Pedro Severino’s RBI double in the first. ­Velazquez collected his first career RBI with a triple in the second. Rio Ruiz tagged a homer out to right in the fourth. The Orioles added another run off a combination of Javy Guerra and Kyle Finnegan in the sixth. Then they added another with three singles off Wander Suero in the eighth, giving them a hit in every inning they batted in.

The Nationals, meanwhile, collected just four hits outside of the shots from Soto and Turner. Two of them belonged to Turner, who had three hits for the second consecutive game. Soto stayed in an unshakable rhythm, Turner kept working into his, and the rest of the order left the scoreboard wanting more. That’s becoming a familiar theme.