(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — May 17 — The Washington Nationals fell to the Baltimore Orioles after falling into an early 6-1 hole. Still, the Nationals come away from the three-game set with a series victory.

The Orioles got off to a hot start with three home runs in the first four innings, with one coming off Richard Lovelady, who the Nationals deployed as an opener, and two off Miles Mikolas, the team’s primary pitcher on the day. Meanwhile, Nationals center fielder Jacob Young got the team on the board with his fifth home run of the season.

The Nationals battled back with runs in the fourth and seventh innings, cutting the Orioles’ lead to 6-3. After the Orioles grabbed an insurance run in the top of the ninth, the Nats went down quietly in the bottom half of the frame, earning just one baserunner on a double by second baseman Luis Garcia.

“I think we’re overall happy with how this series went,” Nationals manager Blake Butera said. “Obviously, you wanna win every game, but taking two out of three from this team is pretty good.”

After just five home runs across his first three big league seasons, not many expected Young to be swinging a power bat.

While Young has still been subpar offensively, posting a .224/.275/.353 slash line, he has already doubled his career home run total from before the season, with five on the year, and improved his slugging percentage by .066 from last season despite worse contact numbers.

Slugging has been a point of emphasis in Young’s offseason training as he looks to become more of a true five-tool player.

Despite losing his first game since April 24, Mikolas arguably pitched just as well as he had in his previous three appearances, each of which was a win.

The Nationals hurler tossed 5 2/3 innings — a season high — allowing four runs on six hits, with all the damage coming on the two home runs he allowed.

“I thought Miles did a good job of throwing everything he had at [them],” Butera said. “Just lost that battle.”

The Nationals’ loss didn’t come without opportunity to score runs — the team left 10 on base throughout the contest.

“I felt like we had some [chances] to get back into it,” Butera said. “We had multiple runners on base when innings ended … I thought we did a good job of getting men on, just couldn’t get that big hit.”

The night after reclaiming the MLB lead for team runs scored with a 13-run explosion, one of the league’s top offenses just wasn’t able to break through.

The Nationals will continue their homestand with a four-game series against the New York Mets, with the first game beginning Monday at 6:45 p.m. ET. Jake Irvin will take the mound for Washington, tasked with facing Christian Scott, an inexperienced 27-year-old who currently holds a 3.45 earned run average in four starts with New York.