Washington Nationals beat Philadelphia Phillies 3-0 to sweep double-header – MLB Update
The Washington Nationals blanked the Philadelphia Phillies 3-0 in the second game of the day-night double header to win their second consecutive game on Tuesday, September 20 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
With Cliff Lee starting, the Phillies were confident to regain glory after losing the first game 3-4 in a ten-inning encounter. Philadelphia returned to their conventional line-up after an unsuccessful experimentation of playing just two regular players
in the first game. Hunter Pence was scratched from this game and Shane Victorino failed yet again, going 0-for-4 to see his average plunge to .284 for the season. The result, however, got worse for the Phillies as the offense completely failed against an average
pitching outfit.
Before this game, Lee had won seven of his previous nine starts to see his win-loss record improve dramatically from 9-7 to 16-7. However, a reality check was vital before the postseason and the Nationals did just that to hand Lee his eighth loss of the
season.
Danny Espinosa homered towards right-field in the second inning to give the visitors a lead upfront before adding another run in the sixth inning to double the lead for the Nationals. Espinosa’s second run came off Ross Detwiler’s single down centre-field
after the latter had managed to keep the Phillies at bay from the mound.
Detwiler pitched seven-plus innings to bag his third win of the season after having lost five already so far. He allowed just three hits in his spell of 81 pitches, generating 51 strikes to completely eradicate the Phillies and level the win-loss record
for the season to 8-8 between both teams.
Justin De Fratus and David Herndon pitched a perfect inning each in the depth for the Phillies but could not make-up for Lee’s dismal performance after their offense surrendered to Washington’s superior pitching.
Drew Storen pitched a perfect ninth inning for the second time in the day to save his 40th game from 45 chances this season. The Phillies have lost four consecutive games since being crowned as National League East Champions and still need to
win four from the remaining eight games to register an all-time most wins in a single season record.
Washington leads the four-game series 2-0.
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