Photo by “Warning Track Power” and permission given to TalkNats
The first 25,000 fans through the gates this afternoon at Nationals Park received a Daniel Murphy bobblehead. Who else should get the walk-off hit -but- Daniel Murphy? It was a ‘Good Friday’ for the Washington Nationals who walked it off in the 10th inning on a Daniel Murphy double while Bryce Harper, who led-off the 10th inning with a single, officially scored the winning run as he sprinted from 1st base with a head-first dive as he passed over that pentagonal home plate for the winning run. Harper laid there, face down to the ground in joy, as Jayson Werth jumped on top of him in celebration and others followed in the dog pile.
The bullpen was perfect today as far as not yielding a run while covering 3 innings by Koda Glover, Blake Treinen, and Shawn Kelley. Stephen Strasburg was downright filthy with his pitches today even though he yielded 2 runs over 7 innings, he looked almost unhittable. Unfortunately, Strasburg was dealing with a moving strike zone by home plate ump Dan Bellino, and it caused Strasburg at least 2 strikeouts that extended innings as Strasburg had to throw 111 pitches in his outing over 7 innings. The frustration seemed to boil over as both Strasburg and catcher Matt Wieters were jawboning with Bellino.
Anthony Rendon had his best game of the season and drove in the game tying run with a booming double off the top of the right-center field out-of-town scoreboard. Rendon had a single and the RBI double, but also could have had the game-winning hit in the 9th inning except he was robbed by Maikel Franco on a smash towards 3rd base.
Another positive in the game was flawless defense by the Nationals, and Adam Eaton had the Nationals defensive play of the game with this gem.
In this game, Daniel Murphy was 2-5 and extended his hitting streak to all 10 games this season. It was also his 7th multi-hit game this season. Murphy went 2-5 and actually lowered his batting average to .444.
This season on Baseball… pic.twitter.com/070JIYubAM
— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) April 15, 2017
