Left-hander is a bit wild in loss to the Braves A few hours before the first pitch of Sunday’s game with the Atlanta Braves, Nationals pitcher Gio Gonzalez was named the National League’s pitcher of the month for May.
But baseball can humble even the best players in an instant. One week after an effortless, dominant performance against the Braves on national television, Gonzalez looked mortal. He struggled with his command all day and fell apart with two wild pitches and two walks in the fifth inning. Atlanta scored twice in that frame, including the eventual winning run to earn a 3-2 victory over Washington.
“I thought [Gonzalez] had pretty good stuff, but he had no command,” Nats manager Davey Johnson said. “It’s very rare that happens to him. Today was one of those days.”
| Nationals notes |
| » Washington will pick 16th overall in the first round of the 2012 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft. The first round and an initial compensation round begin Monday at 7?p.m. |
| » For the first time since 2006, the Nats don’t have a pick in the top 10. Rounds two through 15 are Tuesday. The draft finishes Wednesday with rounds 16 to 40. |
| » Outfielder Bryce Harper was named the National League rookie of the month for May. Harper, the first Nats player to win that award since Ryan Church in 2005, batted .271 with four triples and four home runs. |
Steve Lombardozzi and Bryce Harper led off the contest with back-to-back home runs in the first inning — the first time in modern baseball history dating to 1900 that any pair of rookies had done so. But the Braves answered with an RBI double by Dan Uggla in the third and a two-run single in the fifth by Jason Heyward. That put an end to Gonzalez’s day after 42?3 innings and 91 pitches. He allowed three earned runs on seven hits and three walks with a season-low five strikeouts.
Meanwhile, Braves starter Tommy Hanson kept Washington off balance. He threw an efficient 84 pitches in seven innings. The Nats didn’t score after the back-to-back homers and managed just those two runs on six hits. Hanson didn’t walk a batter and struck out struck six.
The Nats (30-22) produced a few chances. A one-out double by Danny Espinosa in the fourth led to nothing. Harper crushed a ball off the out-of-town scoreboard in right field with one out in the fifth but was caught trying to stretch the play into a triple. In the seventh, catcher Jesus Flores launched a ball to left that pinned Matt Diaz to the fence before he reached up at the last second to snag it.
In the eighth, Washington put runners at first and second with nobody out after a pair of walks. But Ryan Zimmermann hit into his eighth double play of the season. With Lombardozzi at third, Adam LaRoche flied out to deep left field. Atlanta closer Craig Kimbrel then struck out the side in the ninth to end it.
“Some of the guys were [in the dugout] saying, ‘We’re going to get you some runs.’ They were fighting,” Gonzalez said. “You see that kind of life that they want to compete and they’re going out there to get you a win. It’s a positive thing for me. I look at it like the good thing. When you hear something like that, it just makes your day a little bit better.”
