Espinosa’s HR extends season-best win streak
The Nationals’ longest winning streak in two years continued on Thursday night.
It wasn’t a conventional victory. After closer Drew Storen blew a save opportunity in the top of the ninth inning, teammate Danny Espinosa bailed him out with a three-run home run in the bottom of the 10th for a walk-off 7-4 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals at Nationals Park.
Left-handed pitcher John Lannan extended his string of quality starts and Jayson Werth, Roger Bernadina and Laynce Nix all hit solo home runs as Washington swept a three-game series from St. Louis. The Nats won their sixth straight game and inched closer to the elusive .500 mark at 33-36. It was the first walk-off homer of Espinosa’s career.
| Nationals notes |
| » Washington’s string of 130 2/3 consecutive innings without an error ended when second baseman Danny Espinosa committed one in the ninth. That is a franchise record. |
| » Nats first baseman Adam LaRoche underwent successful surgery Thursday. The team’s medical director, Dr. Wiemi Douoguih, performed a SLAP labrum repair in LaRoche’s left shoulder. He is expected to return for spring training in 2012. |
| » Washington improved to 7-4 in extra innings this season. |
“Just means a lot for our team to win that and get that sweep,” Espinosa said. “It’s a huge sweep. We’re just playing so well right now and things are starting to go our way. It’s fun to play.”
Lannan allowed two runs or less for the seventh start out of eight as the Cardinals managed just six hits and two runs in seven innings. Lannan walked two batters and also struck out two. Werth and Bernadina hit back-to-back homers in the bottom of the first inning to stake Washington to a 2-0 lead. The last time in franchise history that each of its first two batters in a game homered the team was still in Montreal – June 16, 2002 vs. Toronto when Brad Wilkerson and Jose Vidro did it.
“A no-decision doesn’t matter as long as we win,” Lannan said. “Same as always. I had the sinker working and I felt I had a good rhythm. I knew if I got in trouble I could always go back to that sinker. That was the theme of tonight – getting ahead and getting ground balls.”
Lannnan recorded 13 ground-ball outs in his seven innings of work. Matt Holliday did homer in the second inning for the Cardinals and Albert Pujols then hit his second homer of the series in the eighth. That brought St. Louis to within 4-3. On a night when the ball was jumping out of the stadium that lead wasn’t safe enough. Storen served a solo homer to Yadier Molina on a 1-0 fastball in the top of the ninth to tie the score at 4. The two teams combined for seven home runs on the night.
But Ryan Zimmerman led off the bottom of the 10th inning with a single and Michael Morse was hit by a pitch from Cardinals reliever Fernando Salas. With one out that brought up Espinosa, who ripped a 2-1 pitch into the Nats’ bullpen in right field for the winning hit. It was the rookie second baseman’s 12th home run of the season. He also drove home Morse with an RBI single in the fourth inning.
Washington has now won 11 of its past 16 games. St. Louis dropped to 38-32 and has lost six games in a row. The Nats don’t face the Cardinals again this season. With the victory they took just their second season series from St. Louis since 2000. They also won five of six games in 2007. Washington has now scored 25 runs in its last three games.
“Maybe we talked it into existence,” Nix said of his team’s insistence that its bats would come around eventually this season after a difficult first two months. “This is what you have to do. Our pitching’s been great. If we can swing the bats well and take the pressure off them that really helps everything.”
