Washington Nationals beat Arizona Diamondbacks 2-1 as Bryce Harper shines on the plate - MLB Update
Starter Ross Detwiler registers his third win in the season as the Washington Nationals beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 2-1 at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. on May 3, 2012.
The Nationals met with a huge setback right at the start of the season with their premier pitcher Chien-Ming Wang getting injured. However looking at the way Detwiler, the replacement has performed in the season, it appears that the impact has been minimal.
Henry Rodriguez had another save, taking his total number to 6. While building on the pressure the pitchers preceding him had created, he threw one scoreless inning.
In a low scoring game, the Diamondbacks’ starter Ian Kennedy though gave up two runs in seven innings was far from being worst on the mound.
Conceding just four hits throughout his lengthy time on the mound was a kind of performance that can easily turn into a win, if little support is drawn from the offence.
While both sides had almost a similar number of hits, the Nationals with four and the Diamondbacks three, what made the difference was the base-runners former had on positions.
As soon as left fielder Bryce Harper, who came in third in the line-up, hit a double, Ian Desmond was ready to capitalise on it. Desmond made it to home-plate and restored the lead which was about to be blown up in the sixth.
Harper is floating through dream moments of his life. Making to the Majors was itself a stupendous achievement, becoming a saviour for his side during crucial moments of the game is an icing on the cake kind of scenario.
He entered the season on the back of immense hype about his prodigy.
With experts hurling judgments on his potential impact as a powerful hitter and some even calling him among the best that Baseball will ever witness, only thing all this led to was a sheer excitement of the fans. Their appetite to get a glimpse of his talent
rose immensely.
Interestingly enough, Harper has lived up to all this in style. His slugging percentage stands at an impressive .625.
After a slight hiccup in the progress last week, the Nationals are now back to their winning ways. Everything is working just as it is supposed to. No wonder they are well on their way to sparkle big-time in the season.
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