The Washington Nationals totaled 4 hits in a disappointing low-energy 7-0 loss to the Miami Marlins. All the hits were from players who were not on the opening day roster: Brian Goodwin, Wilmer Difo, Adrian Sanchez and newcomer Howie Kendrick.
AJ Cole struggled some with control but he also was not helped by his defense. The bullpen wasn’t great after they took over in the 6th inning until Brandon Kintzler took over with 2-men on in the 7th inning and 2 outs and Kintzler struck out Ichiro Suzuki to start his Nationals’ career. In the 8th inning, Kintzler struck out Giancarlo Stanton and got both Dee Gordon and Christian Yelich out on groundballs.
Enny Romero exited the game with “forearm tightness and spasms” which is something new for Enny who had back spasms last week which have been hampering him for a while. Dusty Baker indicated that the team might have to bring back Sammy Solis.
The game began with 7.0 innings of domination by Vance Worley who was with the Nationals in Spring Training, and the Nats cut him in favor of Jeremy Guthrie. During the game, Worley was assisted by some nifty defense by Yelich and Gordon and some great defensive positioning. He got out of trouble twice on doubleplay balls, and only struck out 3 batters of which Ryan Zimmerman was K’d twice. The game ended on home run robbery by Giancarlo Stanton skying well over the wall to steal a 2-run home run from Brian Goodwin.
“There’s some much needed rest tomorrow before we head to Chicago,” Dusty Baker said. “Not a very good series for us here.”
The Nationals were 3-for-30 in the series from Bryce Harper, Daniel Murphy and Ryan Zimmerman in the middle of the order. You can do the math as Harper had 2 of the hits, Murphy had 1 and Zimmerman an 0-fer in the series. Daniel Murphy had the day off along with Matt Wieters which essentially give them two days off with the much needed day-off tomorrow and then the team will head to Chicago for a weekend series against the Cubs.
