The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

The starting pitchers for tonight were Mets’ ace Jacob deGrom and Nationals’ call-up AJ Cole. deGrom gave up one run in the game and so did AJ Cole. Unfortunately after AJ Cole departed, Matt Grace gave up 2-runs to make the score 3-1 in favor of the Mets and they added on another run off of Joe Blanton to make the score 4-to-1.

In the bottom of the 9th inning, Adam Lind led-off with a booming 412 foot home run to straight-away centerfield to cut the score to 4-to-2. Wilmer Difo then doubled to put the tying run in the batter’s box. Michael Taylor popped up for the first out. Dusty Baker sent up Anthony Rendon to pinch-hit and he missed a HR that was foul by inches to a few feet. Rendon did draw a walk followed by a walk by Matt Wieters to load the bases. Dusty Baker then sent Howie Kendrick in as a pinch-hitter. Kendrick shot a low liner into the opposite field and Nimmo was playing shallow for some odd reason and was able to catch it for the second out of the inning. Rookie call-up Andrew Stevenson who had a key double early in the game to score the first run came up to bat. AJ Ramos schooled the young lad and struck him out for the final out of the game.

We also learned from Dusty Baker that Ryan Zimmerman was unavailable for today and will be unavailable tomorrow as he hurt his arm/shoulder on a head-first slide yesterday.

Mets’ manager Terry Collins announced that Yoenis Cespedes will be placed on the DL after he hurt his hamstring in the first inning today running the bases.

The Nationals couldn’t support Edwin Jackson with anything more than 1-run. Also missing was good fundamental defense which led to the first Astros run to score. Edwin Jackson finished up 6-innings and completed his night with a 2-1 deficit. The bullpen did its job in the 7th inning with Matt Albers and Matt Grace, but in the 8th inning the wheels came off quickly with a home run off of Grace and a 3-run home run off of Shawn Kelley made the deficit 6-to-1 heading into the 9th inning.

The Nationals first run on the night was a combination of an Andrew Stevenson double, a Kendrick single, and a Wilmer Difo sacrifice fly. The Nationals bats didn’t piece together many more hits the rest of the evening. The Nationals only had 6-hits in the game with 2 by Howie Kendrick and 2 by Daniel Murphy and a hit from Ryan Zimmerman along with that Stevenson double.

This series is now tied at a game each with the decisive game tomorrow night.