courtesy of philliefan99
The Washington Nationals could not complete a three-game series sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday night and fell 3-2 in the eleventh inning putting them back at .500 as they head to New York to play the Mets this weekend. Despite seven strong innings from right-handed starter Stephen Strasburg, the Nats offense lost its momentum from the past couple days.
Washington managed to tally eight hits but stranded eight runners with just two runs to show for it. Both runs came in the fourth inning on a two-out solo homerun off the bat of Ian Desmond against Arizona’s left-handed starter Patrick Corbin. Desmond hit his thirteenth homerun this season to the visitor’s bullpen in left field and is now the team’s homerun leader after passing Bryce Harper in the standings of that statistic.
Their lead was short-lived, however, and the Diamondbacks tied the game up in the sixth inning on a homerun hit by second baseman Aaron Hill off Strasburg.
Strasburg — who gave up six hits, two runs, two walks, one homerun, and struck out four on 113 pitches (76 strikes) — proved himself to manager Davey Johnson in the seventh inning by facing the minimum and striking a man out before being pulled for the night. But with the damage already done, it would be up to the Nats’ offense to try and pick the up the win.
Reliever Drew Storen had a strong outing in the eighth inning facing just three batters and striking them all out. Both Ian Krol and Rafael Soriano did their respsecitive jobs in the ninth and tenth innings but unfortunately the team’s reliable workhorse Craig Stammen gave up the winning run to Arizona in the eleventh.
The inning started with a leadoff double hit by Diamondbacks catcher Miguel Montero. Pinch runner A.J. Pollock replaced Montero at first and moved into scoring position on a sacrifice bunt laid down by outfielder Cody Ross, making it all the way to third base before scoring on a suicide bunt squeeze executed by shortstop Didi Gregorius.
Rachel moved to DC in the fall of 2005 to study Journalism and Music at American University. When she’s not keeping up with the latest Major League Baseball news, she works on making music as an accomplished singer-songwriter and was even a featured performer/speaker at TEDxDupont Circle in 2012. Rachel has also contributed to The Washington Examiner and MASN Sports’ Nationals Buzz as a guest blogger. See why she loves DC. E-Mail: rachel@welovedc.com.
