Photo by Andrew Lang for TalkNats
The Nationals proved tonight that a lead is safe in Coors Field. With a 4-2 score in favor of the Nats, they held that lead the rest of the game even though there were some tense moments like an inning ending groundball that turned into a costly Wilmer Difo error to push the score to 4-3 and then the Nationals bullpen came in and threw 3.0 innings of shutout baseball leading to a 6-3 Nationals win to even this series with the rubber game tomorrow afternoon.
The firepower behind the Nationals offense was mostly all Victor Robles who cleared the bases with a 3 RBI gap double then stole third base and scored on a sacrifice fly to make the score 4-2. Robles would add another hit for a big game. Who started the rally? It was Patrick Corbin with a leadoff single.
Speaking of Corbin, he threw a hard 103 pitches in 6.0 innings to earn the win with 2 earned runs on his statline with his only bad pitch of the night to Tapia who got him for a two-run home run, but then he shut the Rockies down until he was victimized by the costly Difo error which he had to pitch around to limit the damage.
Manager Dave Martinez used Joe Ross for one batter only then went to Tony Sipp to get two lefties. It was unconventional, but when it works, the criticism goes away — but it was strange to use Ross to face the light hitting Drew Butera and then pull him. Wander Suero gave up a lead-off double in the 8th inning, but then got the next two batters out without the runner moving up. Sean Doolittle came in for the four-out save and he executed without allowing a baserunner. The interesting part in the top of the 9th inning was when Doolittle had to bat to stay in the game.
It was a much needed win that gets the Nats back to .500 and tied with the Braves, and just behind the Mets and Phillies who play each other tomorrow.
