The Home for Washington Nationals Game Talk

The Nationals head into the All-Star break with a 6.0 game lead in the NL East with this 3-2 win, and the five Nationals’ All-Stars will fly to San Diego. This was a big win to take this series 3 games to 1 after blowing 3 leads in the first game of the series on Thursday night and losing the series opener.

Gio Gonzalez held the Nats lead and earned the win in this one. Tanner Roark pitch 2 1/3 innings in scoreless relief, and Jonathan Papelbon got his 19th save of the season for a Save rate of 91%.  Never in doubt, right?

Daniel Murphy once again with the big hit in the game as he crushed a 1st inning 2-run HR, and Wilson Ramos delivered the game winning RBI on a gap hit to score Jayson Werth while Bryce Harper got thrown out at the plate.  Jayson Werth drew two key walks and scored on the Murphy home run and the Ramos gapper. No other runs were scored after the 3rd inning, and neither team really mounted any challenges as the pitchers on both side threw 6 shutout innings after the 3rd inning.

The Nationals won this game 6-1 behind a 7.0 inning gem by Max Scherzer and 4 RBIs by Daniel Murphy. The Nationals widened their lead over the 2nd place Mets to 5.0 full games in the NL East. The Nats improve their season series record to 8-4 against the Mets. After tomorrow’s game, the Nationals and Mets will not meet again until September 2nd.

Terry Collins made some questionable moves in a double-switch to bring in Antonio Bastardo to face Daniel Murphy when the score was 4-1, and Murphy took advantage and crushed a 2-run HR to make the score 6-1. The Mets were playing short on their bench as Yoenis Cespedes was not available after injuring his quadricep muscle yesterday, and Collins took out a key lefty James Loney on the double-switch.

Max Scherzer pitched great after a shaky first inning in which the Nationals gave up an unearned run on a throwing error by Jayson Werth. After the 1st inning, Max Scherzer cruised through the rest of his outing.

Daniel Murphy had 3 hits tonight and was shy of hitting for the cycle by the elusive triple. Murphy raised his batting average to .349 and his OPS climbed to .981.

Ruth 1st 12 G vs BOS, 1920:
.293/.420/.732, 5 HR, 12 RBI

Murph 1st 12 G vs NYM, 2016:
.438/.462/.875, 6 HR, 19 RBI pic.twitter.com/dHXesWCjdz

— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) July 10, 2016

“We’ve seen it,” New York manager Terry Collins said. “He’s pumped up to play against us and show us we made a mistake. It’s human nature, and it’s part of the game. We’ve just got to make better pitches. We’re giving him balls to hit. You look at the tape at the end of games and, boy, they’re all good pitches to hit. We’ve got to do a better job.”

The Nats beat the Mets 3-1 behind Stephen Strasburg who out-dueled Noah Syndergaard with a 7 inning gem. The save tonight by Jonathan Papelbon was #367 of his career for 9th on the all-time saves list. This was also Papelbon’s 18th save of the year in 20 games which put him at a 90% save percentage which is in the elite category. Papelbon’s velo ticked up in this game to average 92.5mph on his fastball with a max velo of 93.7mph.

The Nats’ bullpen bent but didn’t break. Shawn Kelley came in for the 8th inning, and the lead-off batter blooped in a double while the next batter was robbed of an RBI as Daniel Murphy dove for the ball on the outfield grass to keep it as an ‘infield’ single which put runners at 3rd and 1st with no outs. Dusty Baker pulled Kelley and brought in lefty Oliver Perez who got Granderson on a 3-1 pitch on a lazy liner on the infield. Dusty pulled Perez and brought in Blake Treinen against Lagares who grounded hard to Daniel Murphy who started a 4-6-3 doubleplay to end the inning. Papelbon had a nice 1-2-3 9th inning to cap the win needing just 11 pitches to finish off the game.

All the offense the Nats really needed was the 2-run HR that Clint Robinson hit off of Noah Syndergaard.

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