Well, I don’t know about you guys — but there’s something that is very satisfying about beating Philadelphia over any other team. Tonight was not only a celebration of Dylan Crews returning to the Washington Nationals’ lineup, but we saw a competitive performance out of our scrappy Nats, as they knock off one of the best teams in baseball. Let’s get into it.
The scoring kicked off in the top of the third against Brad Lord, a Bryce Harper groundball brought a run home on a groundout to put the Phils up 1-0, all on weak contact.
The Nats battled back in the bottom of the fourth. Paul DeJong continued his hot stretch with a solo homer off of Jesus Luzardo to even up the game at one apiece.
That tie did not last long, as the Phillies retook the lead immediately in the top of the fifth. Kyle Schwarber doubled home a run, bringing in Trea Turner to make it a 2-1 game. That would be the last bit of damage they would do off of Nats’ pitching all night.
- Jesus Luzardo: 6 innings, 4 hits, 3 runs (3 earned), 3 walks, 7 strikeouts, 97 pitches
- Brad Lord: 6 innings, 7 hits, 2 runs (2 earned), 1 walk, 3 strikeouts, 92 pitches
The deciding hit of the night came in the bottom half of the seventh. Jose Tena came up with the bases loaded and one out, and proceeded to single home the tying and go-ahead runs to put the Nationals up 3-2.
The bullpen tonight did a tremendous job. Jose A. Ferrer and Cole Henry tossed scoreless innings in the eighth and ninth, shutting the lights off on the Phillies to finish off the first game of the series.
Positives tonight were the entire pitching staff, Lord, Jackson Rutledge, Shinnosuke Ogasawara, Ferrer, and Henry all did a great job tonight to hold down that excellent Philadelphia offense. Offensively, Crews reached base twice in his return to the bigs, and while there were no multi-hit performances, the offense did just enough to get the win.
“That’s a game that you look at it — and it’s like a playoff game. That’s the way you play games like this. Good pitching, good defense, opportune hitting. It was nice to see our pitchers, our defense, our hitters really engage in the game, and doing the little things. That’s what we did today. They picked each other up.”
— Interim-manager Miguel Cairo said after the game
Game two of this four-game set will be tomorrow night at 6:45. We’ll be getting a rematch of the opening day pitching matchup, MacKenzie Gore (5-12, 4.09 ERA) will look to build on his excellent outing last weekend. He’ll face Zack Wheeler (10-5, 2.68 ERA), the Phillies’ Cy Young award candidate in what should be a very intriguing matchup at Nationals’ Park.
