The Nats came into the game tonight desperately needing a solid victory. With good situational hitting and yet another solid showing from Tim Redding, the Nats got that victory winning 6-4 over the NL East leading Florida Marlins. It was almost a picture perfect game for the Nats who finally started to hit the ball.Jumping out of the gates the Nats took a 3-0 lead when they young prospect Andrew Miller, could not throw a strike in the first inning. Miller who dominated in college for UNC only two years ago, only through five strikes in his first 18 pitches, allowing the Nats to put themselves in perfect position to strike first. With the bases loaded and no outs, the Nats finally showed good situational hitting with a Sac Fly by Nick Johnson and a two RBI single by Lastings Milledge.
With a 3-0 lead, the staff ace of the season so far Tim Redding zoned in allowing only one hit and one run, while striking out 10 through the first six innings. The wheels started to come off for Redding however with a 3 run inning in the sixth for the Marlins. A bases clearing double for Nick Johnson in the eighth however gave the Nats the lead which set the stage for Rauch to come on and close the game out.
Containing Hanley:
I said in the preview that containing Hanley Ramirez, possibly the best player in baseball, would be the key to beating the Marlins. Like Reyes in the Mets series, Ramirez has explosive speed
and is a double threat who can beat you with both his legs and his bat. The Nats did a good job not allowing Ramirez to beat them with the latter, not giving him many pitches to hit.The consequence however of pitching around, or in one case tonight pitching at Ramirez, is that you will have to put him on base. This was the case tonight with Hanley going 1 for 2 with a walk and a hit by pitch. While the Nats did a good job containing his bat Ramirez ran wild on them, scoring half the Marlins runs and swiping two bags. It seemed for tonight however that the game plan of avoiding Hanley’s bat worked as he wasn’t able to drive in any crucial runs.
Nick Johnson:
For the first time this season, Nick Johnson looked like the Nick Johnson of old tonight. Going 3 for 4 with four RBI’s, Johnson more then anyone sealed this victory for the club. The Marlins pitchers had trouble locating their spots tonight, and Johnson as a patient hitter took great advantage of this by not chasing any pitches early in counts. By doing this, Johnson found himself in RBI situations ahead in the count, not behind…and that’s what a professional hitter does.
Johnson returning to his old form is good for the Nats for two reasons. First, obviously, they could use a solid number four hitter who will drive in close to 100 runs and hit 20 bombs. Second, having a feared hitter in the four spot will allow Zimmerman to start seeing better pitches to hit, as he did tonight going 2 for 4.
Other Notes:
The Nats shook up their batting order tonight, putting Felipe Lopez in the lead off spot, Guzman to the number 2, and dropping Milledge to the 5 spot. This is the whole line up:
Lopez
Guzman
Zimmerman
Johnson
Milledge
Kearns
Pena
Estrada
It seemed to work as Lopez had a hot night going 3 for 5 and scoring 2 runs. Lopez will need to walk more, but if he can step up and be the player he has the talent to be he could be a great player to put in the leadoff spot. If this isn’t a permanent change, it was still good to see the line up shuffled, sometimes that’s the only thing a manager can do to shake things up and spark some life into a teams’ bats.
1 comment:
Finally good to see them do something with the bases loaded. After the offense let poor John lannan down thursday, it'd been really bad to do the same thing to redding in two tremendous starts. Last year when the starters were on the mound I dread the defense part of the inning, now I almost look forward to it to see how many strikeouts our pitchers can accumulate.
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