With a Max Scherzer 8-inning one run gem, he cruised with six runs of support in a 6-1 final. Scherzer lowered his ERA to 2.52 and moved into third place in the Majors only trailing Hyun-Jin Ryu (1.27) and Charlie Morton (2.31) for the ERA crown. The game was closed out by the 42-year-old Fernando Rodney who the Nats promoted today, and Trea Turner hit a milestone 50th home run which happened to be the 3-run variety. That Turner 418 foot blast was the final scoring for the Nats leading to a very comfortable win where manager Dave Martinez was able to further rest Sean Doolittle, Wander Suero, Tanner Rainey, and Matt Grace.
“He was really good today. All of his pitches were down,” Martinez said. “Utilized the strike zone really well. He’s Max.”
One of the pleasant surprises for Nats fans was that Martin Prado who is out with a hamstring tweak did not come off of the 10-day IL which he was eligible to do today. He has been a thorn in Max’s side for years. Without Prado, Scherzer was extremely pitch efficient tonight and went 8.0 innings and only threw 94-pitches, but Max really threw 95-pitches as he had a pitch against Miguel Rojas that was waved off because of a phantom timeout call. Scherzer had no-hit stuff tonight and gave up 5-hits, and nothing was hit hard. In addition, Scherzer added ten strikeouts to his tally, and if you like pitcher’s wins — Scherzer has won five in a row thanks to the run support that he wasn’t receiving in ten of his starts this season. The ace went from a 2-5 record to 7-5 with these five consecutive wins, and the team is now 7-10 in Scherzer’s starts.
“Enjoy the win, and come back tomorrow ready to play,” Martinez said.
The Nationals send Patrick Corbin to the mound tomorrow on two days of extra rest, and he will face the rookie Zac Gallen who had his MLB debut last week.
