The walk-off win is becoming routine at Nationals Park this season. The fireworks were no different on July 4th.
Jayson Werth walked, was bunted to second base and stole third on the very first pitch by reliever Carlos Marmol before scoring the game-winning run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the 10th inning Monday afternoon. Werth’s aggressiveness helped lift Washington to a 5-4 victory over the Chicago Cubs. It was the fifth walk-off win for the Nats in their last 12 home games.
With the victory, Washington (43-43) climbed back to .500. Laynce Nix had an RBI single, a triple and a critical game-tying walk in the seventh inning. Werth walked twice and added an RBI single and a run-scoring ground out before racing home with that game-winning run. It was all set up by a calculated risk after an initial read on Marmol.
“[Marmol] could inside move me first pitch right there and I’d probably have been out,” Werth said of his quick jump off second base. “Funny game. You steal third and score the winning run. If he inside moves me right there I’m probably the goat. Funny how the game works out. But a win is a win. We’ll take it.”
Nats starting pitcher Jordan Zimmermann hasn’t earned much support from his teammates in 2011. In nine of 16 starts he’s received three runs or less from the offense. While Washington’s bats were again silent in his defense – Zimmermann had the only hit between the second and fifth innings – its fielding let him down, too. Thanks to a miscommunication, a routine fly ball fell between center fielder Roger Bernadina and Werth, the right fielder, as two runs scored to give Chicago a 3-2 lead in the fourth inning.
“Just got to have a short mind out there and just go for the next hitter,” Zimmermann said. “I was able to do that and we got out of it.”
The Nats took the early lead on RBI singles by Nix and Werth in the bottom of the first. The Cubs got one back in the second inning when Marlon Byrd singled. Chicago eventually added to its 3-2 lead on an RBI single by Geovany Soto in the sixth – though Werth fired home in time to get Carlos Pena also trying to score.
Washington wasn’t finished, however. A one-out triple by Nix led to a run on Werth’s ground out to first. That cut the lead to 4-3 in the sixth. The Cubs virtually gave away the tying run in the seventh when reliever Kerry Wood walked Nix with the bases loaded to tie the game at 4. Once the contest headed to the 10th the Nats were confident thanks to an 8-5 record in extra innings.
“But it’s a crazy game. We never know what’s going to happen,” Nix said. “But when [Werth] stole third and put them on their heels we hoped we could pull it out because we didn’t want to be out there any longer.”
Zimmermann was nowhere near as sharp as last week’s brilliant performance against the Angels, where he tossed eight shutout innings. He gave up eight hits this time – one of them that ball that fell between Bernadina and Werth – and walked one batter with five strikeouts. All of those strikeouts came in the first two innings. Zimmermann lasted six innings and gave up more than three runs in a game for three first time since April 26 (12 starts). That’s also the last time he didn’t complete six innings. But for a change – even if it’s not necessarily the way manager Davey Johnson wants his team to play in the long run – the Nats found a way to win for Zimmermann by scratching and clawing for every run they could get.
“We’ve got guys who can go out of the ballpark. But we’re scoring on ground balls in the infield and [on] walks,” Johnson said. “It’s not really a good comfort zone for me right yet. But I think we’re a much better ballclub than that. I’m sure we’re going to show it in the second half here.”
