Photo by Sol Tucker for TalkNats
This afternoon, Washington Nationals manager Dave Martinez said that he wanted his team to score early, and the Nats did just that against the rival Mets to score early and often with a season-high 7-runs in this one en route to a 7-1 win.
“I think we need to start scoring earlier in the games,” Martinez said before this game. “We’ve been scoring runs late. We need to start scoring runs early to take a little bit of pressure off our starting pitching, and see where that takes us. … When you’re playing from behind, or the game’s 0-0 going into the fifth or sixth inning, things kind of change a little bit. Let’s try to score a point or two early, and then go from there.”
The Nats improved to 7-5 with their “A” lineup and 3-1 without Juan Soto which is mind-boggling to figure out how they did that. Maybe the key is great starting pitching and timely hitting?
For Joe Ross, he rebounded from his 10-run drubbing in his last start to go 6.0 innings of 1-run baseball. In Ross’ four starts, he has given up 1-run or less in three of them. He improves to 2-1 on the season, and the team moves to 8-10 on the season as they pushed the Mets back to .500 on the season at 8-8.
The Nats offense accumulated 10-hits, 5-walks, and 1-HBP on their way to score their seven runs in the game. They scored five of those runs off of the starter, Marcus Stroman, who had only given up 2-runs all season in his previous 3-games.
“We accepted our walks today, and kept the line moving,” Martinez said. “We have to accept our walks, and play for the guy behind us. That’s how you extend innings. That’s how you score runs. That’s what they did today.”
The winner of tomorrow’s game (weather permitting) will grab the bragging rights for the series win.
