Another Opening Day and another Bryce Harper Opening Day home run, but today, Adam Lind is the home run hero with a pinch-hit 2-run game winning blast that earned him a curtain call that sent the crowd into a frenzy. Stephen Strasburg pitched-to-contact for most of his seven innings and got some great defense in his 2-run outing. The Nationals won 4-2, and new closer Blake Treinen earned the save as he got the better of the thumpers in the middle of the Marlins’ line-up besting Giancarlo Stanton, Justin Bour, and Marcel Ozuna en route to Save #1.
The Nationals were un-clutch for the bulk of the first six innings until Harper homered in the 6th inning to cut the deficit to 2-1 against reliever David Phelps who shutout the Nats in 12 relief innings last year. In the 7th inning, it was the pinch-hit home run by Adam Lind that literally shook the stadium with the klaxon horn sounding and the 42,744 fans going bonkers.
Some big offensive games today by Trea Turner who led off with a double that hit high off of the outfield wall and got his first steal of the season, Adam Eaton got a double and worked two walks and had a steal and some might find it interesting that Eaton did not have a walk in Spring Training, Murphy had two hits as he got into a groove, Harper hit the home run and had a walk, Ryan Zimmerman had two hits including one with runners-in-scoring-position, and Matt Wieters got his first hit as a Nat and scored on the Lind home run, but again, the offensive hero was Adam Lind.
Bryce Harper now has five Opening Day home runs which set a record for Opening Day home runs for a batter younger than twenty-five years old. Remember, Harper wasn’t called up until after Opening Day of 2012 as today marks only the 5th Opening Day of Harper’s career.
On defense, Trea Turner was flawless and had a Web Gem, Bryce Harper and Jayson Werth both caught flyballs at the outfield wall.
Sammy Solis earned a key ‘hold’ facing the 1-2-3 hitters in the Marlins batting order, and he entered the 8th inning with a slim one-run lead at that point. Solis dispatched the Marlins quickly going a quick 3 up and 3 down on just 8 pitches of which 7 were strikes.
ICYMI: Adam Lind's first swing as a National. pic.twitter.com/yzQynMho4C
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) April 3, 2017
If WAR was calculated on one at-bat, Jeremy Lin (ask Dusty about Jeremy Lin if you don’t know the reference) Adam Lind would be at a +1.0 WAR as the difference maker in this game. Without the Lind home run, A.J. Ramos may have been in for the save. Who knows, but how great was that!
1st Curly W of the year! #Nats
— Trea Turner (@treavturner) April 3, 2017
If you count pitcher wins, Stephen Strasburg begins the season with a record of 1-0, and like Trea Turner wrote,
“1st Curly W of the year! #Nats”
