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“You try to get him in the zone and get the ball down,” Winker said. “But that’s hard when he’s throwing strikes at the top of the zone. He pitched great. He got into a great rhythm. He attacked everybody with everything.”

After Winker missed, Harold Ramírez singled to get runners to the corners, and Luis García Jr., who had hit on a Bradley cutter in the second inning, was out. But Rays manager Kevin Cash took Bradley off the field after 99 pitches and brought in left-hander Colin Poche; García hit a flyout, leaving Washington behind 4-0.

Bradley’s removal from the game didn’t help the Nationals much at the plate. They ended the game with a season-high 16 strikeouts. Five players struck out at least twice, and Joey Meneses earned the Golden Sombrero with four punchouts. The Nationals (39-44) recorded their eighth shutout, while the Rays (42-42) got back to .500.

“You have to stick with the fastball when (Bradley’s) splitter is that good,” manager Dave Martinez said.

The Nationals headed home after a 3-6 road trip that began with a series win at Colorado but went awry with a sweep at San Diego and ended with two losses in three games to the Rays. Against Tampa Bay, the Nationals managed just nine runs in three games — six of those coming in the seventh inning on Saturday. They enter a four-game series with the New York Mets hoping for a spark from rookie James Wood, a 21-year-old outfielder who is scheduled to make his major league debut on Monday.

“That’s the expectation,” Martinez said. “My biggest concern is to get him in the lineup when he’s there and let him play.”

The Nationals’ offensive identity is that of a team that puts contact first and puts the ball in play. Their 644 strikeouts (7.8 per game) are the third-fewest in the National League. But Bradley entered Sunday with an average of 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings in his first nine starts. He would rank in the top 10 in the majors if he had pitched enough innings to qualify.

Bradley set the tone by striking out six of the first eight batters he faced, including five in a row, from cleanup man Ramírez to No. 8 hitter Drew Millas. The Nationals had runners on the corners in the third inning, but Lane Thomas struck out before Winker made a groundout. After Bradley took him out of the game while covering first base, Winker told him he threw a good pitch. Bradley gave him a first bump in return.

“In the heat of the moment, I simply took my hat off to him. And then he beat me by far with the last hit,” joked Winker.

The sight of the Nationals chasing balls in the dirt was all too familiar. Bradley had four strikeouts with his splitter, four with his fastball and three with his cutter. And only Winker’s strikeout in the sixth inning came on a pitch Bradley left in the strike zone.

Nationals left-hander Patrick Corbin couldn’t keep up, and his record fell to 1-8. He allowed a home run to Isaac Paredes early in the second inning that gave the Rays the lead. Three batters later, Jose Caballero hit a two-run home run to make it 3-0. Paredes finished off a single before the cycle; in the fourth inning, he hit a triple and then scored on a Jose Siri sacrifice fly. Randy Arozarena added a solo home run against Jordan Weems in the seventh inning.

In the eighth, the Nationals had two runners on base and one out when the centerpiece of the lineup took its turn, but Winker was eliminated when he saw a Garrett Cleavinger fastball that grazed the edge of the strike zone before Ramírez chased a fastball and ended the danger.

Gray has problems starting rehab

Right-hander Josiah Gray made his fifth rehab start in June – and his second in a row with Class AAA Rochester – and allowed seven runs in three innings.

Gray, who has been on the injured list since early April with a strained right forearm flexor, had his best rehab start of the season on Tuesday, allowing one run in six innings. Martinez said Gray would make at least one more start — maybe two — before returning to the Nationals. The goal was for him to go seven innings and 90 pitches.

On Sunday, Gray struck out 73. Perhaps the most troubling thing about his performance was that his velocity was slipping. His average fastball velocity in 2023 was 93.3 mph; on Sunday, his average was 90.6 and his peak was 91.9.