Nats 9, Braves 3
Now that’s more like it. Nationals manager Davey Johnson has been waiting for a comfortable win since he took over as manager on June 25. Washington did beat the Dodgers in Los Angeles 10 days ago 7-2. Other than that seven of Johnson’s 12 wins entering the day were by two runs or less. Check out the details in our game story here. Plenty of offense, a grand slam by Rick Ankiel and a monster home run by Michael Morse. That was his 18th of the season and among the longest homers hit at Nationals Park by a right-handed batter going to the opposite field.
You don’t usually expect eight strikeouts from John Lannan, especially after three consecutive four-walk games that he deemed “unacceptable” after it happened again last Thursday against the Marlins. But Lannan has always pitched well against Atlanta (7-4, 3.24 ERA entering Tuesday’s game). That’s likely because it’s a lineup that’s always had a rough time against lefties.
Lannan has also taken to heart a lesson pitching coach Steve McCatty imparted during a series in Milwaukee in May: He is a sinker, change-up pitcher and needs to embrace that at all times. Getting hit in the face by a line drive July 8 during a start against the Colorado Rockies may have knocked him off his game for a bit. This was his best performance since that scary incident when Lannan raced off the mound with blood pouring from his nose.
“I’ve never been a strikeout pitcher,” Lannan said. “I think if I start trying to strike guys out I’ll get in trouble. It happened in Baltimore [during a May 21 start]. But today I was happy with the result.”
If Lannan was going to go down against the Braves it wasn’t going to be because he was issuing one free pass after another. Atlanta has some strong hitters in its lineup – though clean-up batter Brian McCann is on the disabled list and third baseman Chipper Jones is limited with a strained quad muscle. But if being around the plate meant a few more seeing-eye base hits that was fine with Lannan compared to the constant walks. His change-up was the key pitch on Tuesday.
“I think the biggest thing when I learned to throw change-ups to [left-handed batters] was pitching against the Phillies, especially [Chase] Utley and [Ryan] Howard,” Lannan said. “To get them off the outside pitch I needed something else inside. If you look at the numbers most lefties struggle against change-ups. They don’t see it much. I just got to have the confidence to throw it and it works.”
Easier said than done, of course. Lannan explained that a left-handed batter’s swing naturally covers anything down in the strike zone and in on the plate. Most left-handed pitchers intuitively abandon that specific pitch against them. It’s not hard to abandon that philosophy – as long as you believe in what you’re doing.
“If you locate it well and keep it down I think it’s a good pitch,” Lannan said.
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