Nationals 6, Giants 5
They keep finding a way. There was no reason the Nats should have been close enough to rally against the Giants on Thursday. Ross Detwiler gave up 11 hits – granted a bunch of them were tissue soft – and walked two batters in just five innings. Yet he kept his team close enough.
Even after usually reliable reliever Craig Stammen gave up two earned runs in the sixth inning there was a sense Washington was still in it. The crowd of 29,819 came alive during a 10-pitch at-bat by rookie Bryce Harper against San Francisco ace Matt Cain in the sixth inning. The end result was a ground out to first. But it was good theatre to lead off that frame and it helped run up Cain’s pitch count. By the seventh he was noticeably tiring and pitches left up to both Ian Desmond and Danny Espinosa were lifted over the wall in right. Now it was still 5-3. But the momentum the Giants had built was gone and by the bottom of the ninth so was the win. Read the details here.
“[Cain] had some good stuff like he always has and for us to kind of get it within striking distance to be able to make a run later in the game is kind of what this team has done all year,” said third baseman Ryan Zimmerman. “It’s fun to be a part of.”
The Nats now have 19 walk-off wins in the last two years – tops in the entire sport. They don’t come much better than this one. Washington won all three games against the Giants for its third series sweep in a month. It has won four in a row and seven of nine overall.
“I hate to ruin all your stories. Those re-writes are tough,” manager Davey Johnson said as his opening remark to reporters after the game.
Something tells me he actually kind of likes it. He also likes that his offense – “a little dormant” early against Cain – found a way to get to him. There were plenty of heroes in this one. Harper had the long at-bat against Cain, doubled home the last run in the three-run seventh inning, tied the game in the ninth with a chopper through the right side of the infield and then scored the game-winning run on Adam LaRoche’s just-slow-enough grounder to second base when the double-play attempt failed.
Tyler Moore had a nice at-bat to lead off the ninth against San Francisco closer Santiago Casilla, who was charged with his fourth blown save of the season. He ripped a double into the gap in left-center and took third when Casilla inexplicably stepped in front of his own third baseman to field Steve Lombardozzi’s bunt. He fumbled the ball, had no play and the Nats were off and running in the ninth.
“That’s been all year. It’s hard to explain what that is and why it is,” LaRoche said. “But it’s something that really good teams have and we’re getting that sense around here that we’re never out of it and that somebody new is going to come through every night.”
LaRoche admitted that his top speed still isn’t very fast. But he ran hard down the line anyway as the extreme movement on Casilla’s fastball maybe took some mileage off a ball smacked hard to second. When shortstop Brandon Crawford realized he had to rush his throw or see the winning run score, it bounced and Brandon Belt couldn’t quite come up with the scoop at first base. Game over.
“Putting pressure on defenses is what we do,” Desmond said. “I think that our team probably does it as good as anybody – running hard down the first base line, running out pop ups. Things like that. You want to make the other team feel uncomfortable.”
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