In the first game of this three game series in Philadelphia, the Nationals took advantage of multiple Phillies mistakes to put this one in the win column and move back to .500 on the season. Stephen Strasburg pitched 6 innings of 2-run baseball to earn the win. Strasburg appeared to pace himself early and was throwing free and easy. He threw 99 pitches on the evening and his highest velo was in the 4th and 5th innings.
The offense was paced by Juan Soto who got the Nats on the board first with an RBI single after an Anthony Rendon single on a 2-out hit and run play that sent Bryce Harper to third base. Every Nats starter had at least one hit except for Stephen Strasburg who did have two key sacrifice bunts.
Throughout the game, the Phillies helped the Nationals with some poor defense and then Wilson Ramos went first to third on a single in a slow jog around the bases and was thrown out at third base for the first out in the inning. If Ramos hustled, it would have been men on the corners with no outs. It was probably the play of the game as Adam Eaton lasered a one-hop throw to Anthony Rendon who applied the tag.
There was no letdown on the scoring in this game. The Nats combined small ball with the long ball tonight.
“I preached all year long about doing the little things,” manager Dave Martinez said. “That’s how we have to win games right now. Our line-ups good. When we hit, we hit. But we have to score runs any way we can.”
With a 5-3 score in the 9th inning, Justin Miller worked a 1-2-3 inning for his first save as a Washington National. The Phillies were aggressively swinging most of the game and helped Justin Miller who started the 9th inning with a 2-0 count. Once he got that first strike of the inning he relaxed and got 3 contact outs to close this game out.
