You would never know how close the Nats were to 3 home runs to the right of the rightfield foul pole that looked like all homers by Zimmerman, Murphy and Lind. The Nats lost 4-2 and were actually in the 6th inning staring at a perfect game being thrown by German Marquez.
Tanner Roark struggled from the start to hit his spots and only went 5 innings giving up 4 runs on 109 pitches. Roark was up with most of his pitches and was actually helped out by some nifty defense by Bryce Harper or else that final boxscore would have looked worse.
Adam Lind led off the 6th inning with a great at-bat that wore Marquez down as Lind worked him for 10-pitches before falling victim to a swinging strike on that slow curve in the dirt. To start off his Nats career, Howie Kendrick had a pinch-hit double after a Matt Wieters single and both runners scored on a Wilmer Difo opposite field single. That was really all of the offense. It was Wieters single that broke up the perfect game.
Bryce Harper‘s 19-game hitting streak ended tonight, and the Nats only put together 3-hits in the game that were all in the 6th inning. The Rockies pitchers combined for 8-of-the-9 innings in perfect form. The Rockies themselves could only knock 6-hits but the big blow was the 2-run home run to Trevor Story.
Tomorrow is a doubleheader and the debut of prized prospect Erick Fedde. This game began with a tribute to an original Expo draftee and Nationals’ All-Star Ian Desmond, and ended with Bud Black shaking hands and taking game one of this 3-game series.
