This game started off nice for the Washington Nationals then quickly went awry and the Nationals fell into a 5-1 deficit. When the team clawed back to tie the game, they quickly fell behind at the top of the next inning 6-to-5. The Nationals started off the bottom of the 7th inning with an Adam Eaton drag bunt single followed by a Juan Soto single and an Anthony Rendon bases clearing double. The inning kept going as the Nationals scored two more to get the score to 9-to-6 and eventually win this one 9-to-7.
Now for the star of the game, it was Trea Turner who was 4-for-4 as he finished a triple shy of hitting for a cycle. On top of that, Turner was flawless in the field. He scooped a low throw on a stealing attempt at 2nd base as the runner from 3rd base sprinted home and Turner twisted and threw a jump-throw home to catcher Spencer Kieboom who applied the tag for the 3rd out in one of the best defensive plays of the season. This video below is a compilation of Turner’s highlights from just this game although some players would be happy to do this in a 3 game series!
For the Nationals starting pitcher Jefry Rodriguez, he was squeezed by the umpire at the worst times in this game and lost his composure and exited the game losing 5-to-1. Justin Miller struggled in the 6th inning with his delivery and was saved by Trea Turner‘s defense on the play at home to end the 6th inning. Miller did have a quick and easy 7th inning followed by a quick 1-2-3 debut 8th inning by Kelvin Herrera who was through the inning on 6 pitches and aided by Trea Turner’s second Web Gem of the game. Sean Doolittle closed out the 9th inning for his 19th save of the season.
“This team is starting to become relentless,” manager Dave Martinez said. “When you start doing that, you put up runs late. That’s a good sign. They kept pounding, pounding and pounding. We were able to have some big innings there and score runs. ”
An impressive job of coaching by manager Dave Martinez and Derek Lilliquist who made an adjustment to Justin Miller‘s delivery in-game as they noticed in the 6th inning he was “yanking” pitches. As Davey said, the adjustment they made worked because Miller cruised through the 7th inning.
Every starting Nats position player was on-base at least twice in this game except Daniel Murphy. The Nationals put together 14-hits to go with 5 walks on the night. Bryce Harper was rewarded with contact tonight as he had a bloop hit down the leftfield line that tied the game up in the 5th inning — make contact and good things can happen.
Michael A. Taylor extended his hitting streak to a career-high 10 games with a pinch-hit RBI single in the 4-run 7th inning.
With this win, the Nationals ended a 4-game losing streak because the win in the suspended game yesterday against the Yankees technically was a win backdated to May 15th. Gio Gonzalez gets the start tomorrow for the Nationals.
