Photo by Marideth Sandler for TalkNats
Stephen Strasburg was pulled after the 6th inning with a leg cramp and the Nats took a 3-0 lead into the bottom of the 7th inning. Dusty Baker went to Ollie Perez for the 7th inning, and Sean Doolittle got the 8th inning. Doolittle gave up a run and the Nats took a 3-1 lead to the 9th inning and Brandon Kintzler gave up 2 runs for the blown save which was the first for the Nationals since the first week of July.
The game went to extra innings and the 11th inning began with a Wilmer Difo bunt single and 2 batters later with Difo on 2nd base, Ryan Zimmerman was awarded 1st base with a HBP. The play was reviewed and Zim was sent back to bat again in an 0-2 count and Tyler Clippard uncorked the wild pitch in the dirt that got by Brian McCann on a swinging strike 3 and Zim sprinted safely to 1st base and Difo advanced to 3rd base. Anthony Rendon hit a sacrifice fly to make the score 4-3 and Matt Wieters then hit a single in the gap to score Zimmerman to make the score 5-3.
Sammy Solis pitched for the save and gave up a leadoff home run to make the score 5-4 but then retired the next 3 batters for the save and a nice 5-4 win. This was Sammy’s first save of his career.
This was a great pitcher’s duel between former Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel and Stephen Strasburg, and it was Strasburg who pitched like the Cy Young.
Keuchel on a swinging bunt by Pedro Severino threw away the ball scoring the 1st run of the game in the 5th inning. The issue was Keuchel walked the first two batters of the 5th inning and eventually both runners scored. In the 7th inning, Michael Taylor hit a gap double to score Matt Wieters from 1st base which made the score 3-0.
The offensive stars were Anthony Rendon and Matt Wieters who both had 2 hits a piece in a game where the Nats only had 7 hits.
Stephen Strasburg with his shutout lowered his ERA to 3.10, and moved to 6th place on the MLB ERA list behind teammates Max Scherzer and Gio Gonzalez.
