The Phillies cracked two home runs off of Tanner Roark to take a 3-to-1 lead as the Nationals didn’t capitalize early on their chances until Matt Wieters went swinging in a 3-0 count and smacked an opposite field double into the gap and was brought home on a 2-run single by Trea Turner for what turned out to be the final scoring on the evening at 4-to-3 in favor of the Nationals — but if not for Michael Taylor the Phillies would have had a third home run in the game as MAT skied above the centerfield wall to rob Andres Blanco of a sure home run and a tie game.
Victor Robles got the home crowd of 26,267 fans enthusiastically clapping as he was inserted as a pinch-hitter and flied out deep to rightfield on a 2-0 pitch. There were other rookies who came up big like Rafael Bautista who had a pinch-hit single to load the bases for Trea Turner’s offensive heroics.
“The Firm” did their thing with Brandon Kintzler for the 7th inning with the big assist to Michael Taylor’s defense for the scoreless 7th inning. Ryan Madson had an easy 8th inning and Sean Doolittle went sweet 16 for the Nats for his 16th save of the season.
The offensive stars came out to shine late in this game and every Nats position player had at least one hit except for Ryan Zimmerman. Alejandro De Aza got the Nats on the board with an RBI single, and Adam Lind was the only Nats batter with a multi-hit game going 2-for-3.
The Nationals improved to a season’s best 32-games over .500 with a 86-and-54 record and the Nationals pushed the Magic # down to 5 as they await the final outcome of the Marlins game which will end shortly (UPDATED: Marlins lose it in the 9th inning pushing the Magic # to 4). The Nationals improved to 8 games over .500 in 1-run games at 25-and-17.
