Nats 4-2 win over the Marlins and Joe Ross goes 7 strong innings giving up only 1 run with a Blake Treinen 1-2-3 8th inning, and Jonathan Papelbon earned the save for his 3rd of the season.
The Nats record improves to 3-1 on the season, and compared to a year ago the Nationals did not win their 3rd game last year until game 9 with a 3-6 record.
What a time for Jayson Werth to get off the schneid with a 200 foot bloop RBI go-ahead single in a 4 game sample size where he is finding numerous opportunities hitting behind players who are on base often for him. The trifecta combination of Harper, Zimmerman, and Murphy have combined for being on-base 27 of 50 times so far this season for an on-base combination of 54% of the time.
Clint Robinson with the big line drive 2 RBI opposite field single for his 1st hit of the year and that was the difference in the game.
In the 106.7FM postgame show with Charlie Slowes and Dave Jageler, they gave the Great Move of the Game award to Wilson Ramos for throwing out Dee Gordon on a steal attempt at a critical time of the game. Joe Ross did a great job of holding Gordon close. Ramos threw out Gordon 4 times last year as he won the MLB stolen base crown last year with 58 steals.
Joe Ross had 2 doubleplays turned by his defense all of his 2015 season and today had 2 doubleplays turned behind him. Defense was big today. The game started off with a Dee Gordon triple and he scored the only run off of Ross to which Dusty Baker said, “[Ross] learned damage control today because that could have turned into a 3, 4, run inning.”
Anthony Rendon was probably the offensive star with 3 hits and scoring 2 big runs. Of note, Michael Taylor, Jayson Werth and Clint Robinson all got their first hits of the season today.
Sample sizes remain small with 4 games of statistics, but you also have to like the at-bat that Danny Espinosa put together where he worked a walk. He hunted a long-ball early in the count with a long swing and adjusted to a more patient approach in a 3-2 count to lay off a couple of junk pitches, and that is called progress. We have to hope that Michael A. Taylor can settle back in and find himself. Taylor is 1-16 with no walks. Not a good start to Taylor’s 2016 season given all the confidence Dusty Baker has in him, and don’t think Dusty has changed his mind on Taylor as Dusty knows the big picture. Small sample sizes are often deceptive.
Could a shuffle happen tomorrow to move Taylor back in the order? We will see. Rendon works well in the 2 and Bryce in the 3 and Murphy has already adapted to the 5 even though his K/9 is up he is getting on-base at a .611 pace so far with a 1.534 OPS. That is not a typo.
Bryce Harper hit an opposite field shot that looked like a HR off the bat for his his 100th HR and it came up short of the wall for what turned out to be Bryce’s 100th double of his career and the Nats presented him with the baseball after the game. Bryce will try again tomorrow night for his 100th HR against the Braves.
Nats get ready for Atlanta tomorrow night.
#CurlyW in the books.#OnePursuit pic.twitter.com/2wiZlIsufA
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) April 10, 2016
