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courtesy of MudflapDC

By the ninth inning of Sunday afternoon’s 11-2 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies, the Washington Nationals fielded eight players who spend time at Triple-A Syracuse this season. It was a day where most everything went right for Washington, allowing Manager Davey Johnson to give some of the call-up kids a little playing time.

Right-handed starting pitcher Jordan Zimmermann pitched seven strong innings and gave up seven hits and two runs while walking two, striking out seven and hitting a batter on 102 pitches (65 strikes).

For as solid as Zimmermann once he got into a groove, the player of the game was catcher Wilson Ramos who made his 23^rd consecutive start behind the dish. Ramos went four-for-four with three singles and a homerun.

In a game where the offense continued to a pile on against the Phillies’ pitching staff, outfielder Denard Span, two-for-four, extended his hitting streak to 26 games with a single in the second inning. He’s now one game short of the 2013 Major League high 27 game hitting streak set by Michael Cuddyer on the Rockies.

Philadelphia scored first during the second inning when third baseman Cody Asche’s single drove outfielder Domonic Brown home. The Nats followed suit in the bottom half of the inning when outfielder Bryce Harper, after doubling, scored on a single hit by Ramos.

The Phillies would tack on their last run of the day in the top of the third when ex-Nat Roger Bernadina scored but Philadelphia would only hold onto that lead for one more half-inning.

Between the fourth and seventh innings, Washington scored ten runs on fifteen hits, five runs of which were scored in the seventh inning when the Nats batted through their line-up.

The Nat’ bullpen got to rest for the most part on Sunday with the except one inning of work from left-handed pitcher Xavier Cedeno who struck out two batters and right-handed pitcher Ryan Mattheus who closed the game out. Mattheus gave up a leadoff single in the ninth but the Phillies grounded into a double play to end the game.

Rachel Levitin

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.