The Nationals offensive woes did not seem to be evident in the bottom of the ninth in Saturday’s 6-5 win over the Mets. Thanks to a three run rally, Washington was able to finish on top.
Heading into the inning, the Nationals trailed 5-3. But in the blink of an eye, no one would have known the team was having issues with the bat. Adam Dunn stepped to the plate and nearly missed a home run as he took Francisco Rodriguez deep to center and hit the ball off the top of the wall.
“This ballpark is so weird in that area, sometimes it goes, sometimes it doesn’t,” Dunn said. “So you never really know when you hit it to center what it’s going to do.”
Pudge knocked in the winning run on a base hit the opposite way to score Ryan Zimmerman. In a game where things looked to be all too familiar, it ended with jubilation from a sell-out crowd.
It was the first eight innings that looked the grimmest for the Nats as Stephen Strasburg looked less than phenomenal.
Strasburg delivered a rocky start. He was visibly off his game in a first inning where he threw almost 40 pitches, more than double the amount any pitcher hopes to throw in a frame. An uncharacteristic three walks helped the Mets get on the board early.
“Bottom line, extremely sped up and it was going to be one of those games when I was trying to do too much,” Strasburg said. “Guys came through today, let me tell you, it was an awesome win.”
From the very beginning, his typical pinpoint control was clearly off. Normally criticized for throwing too many strikes, Strasburg tipped to the other end of the spectrum on Saturday.
The Nationals rallied to score two runs to make the game even with the Mets. It got Strasburg off the hook for the loss, and proved that he had pitched well enough to give them a chance.
“We were down the whole day,” Manager Jim Riggleman said. “Stras was really battling out there. It really is a credit to him to fight himself a little bit with some pitches and keep us in the game.”
Strasburg got a lot of help from fellow 2009 first round draft pick, Drew Storen. He threw an impressive sixth and seventh inning allowing no hits while striking out three.
“It’s awesome. That’s what he does,” Strasburg said of Storen. “He goes out there and he shuts it down. It’s big for us because those two innings are when our bats came alive.”
Things looked even worse when David Wright drove in Alex Cora after a leadoff triple given up by Tyler Clippard. The lead looked like it would be enough as a one or two run deficit to the Nationals looks more like a massive undertaking than a winnable game these days.
The wheels looked like they came off the bus later in the inning as the frustrating one run hole became a three run deficit. A double by rookie catcher Josh Thole put the Mets up by a score of 4-2. Then a sacrifice fly from Ruben Tejada made it 5-2. Tyler Clippard and the Nationals looked done.
But a scoreless inning from Matt Capps prevented it from becoming a blowout. It was just what the team needed in order to have a shot to come back in the bottom half of the inning.
The team that had been scoring runs too little, too late, finally got just enough, just in time.
You can reach this staff writer at slindauer@theeagleonline.com.
