Washington Nationals break three-game losing streak and win 4-2 against Pittsburgh Pirates - MLB
Starter Stephen Strasburg helps the Washington Nationals quit their three-game losing streak, in 4-2 win against the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on May 10, 2012, while playing last game of three-match series.
The Nationals recovered immediately after being let down by their offence and relievers in couple of games played earlier. Inability to draw suitable at-bats, especially during middle part of the innings was one of the reasons of their failure.
In this regard, the manager Davey Johnson, sent Bryce Harper and second baseman Danny Espinosa little late in the line-up, to make sure whenever hits are required during this period, enough competency will be there.
The strategy worked as most of their runs came during later part of the game.
Sixth inning turned out decisive, as the Nationals posted three runs in it. Centre-fielder, Roger Bernadina hit a homer to centre and since bases were not loaded, only one run came.
In the same inning, first baseman Adam LaRoche struck another homer, which was more valuable than the previous one as Ryan Zimmerman also scored in the process.
While the Nationals added all of their runs at the back of homers, Pirates relied more on classic ways of scoring.
Pirates’ centre-fielder, Andrew McCutchen was one of the few players, who stood up against quality pitches by the Nationals' powerful arms. Continuing his terrific performance in last game, he went 1-for-3 and added one RBI.
Strasburg struck out 13 in six innings. He returns to his best in a most ferocious fashion after having slight rough up in last game. His fastballs were horrifying.
Relief pitcher, Henry Rodriguez recorded his seventh save of the season by throwing scoreless ninth inning.
Despite a better performance by the offence, issues remain for the Nationals.
The manager, Johnson suffers with paucity of options.
Apart from LaRoche, none of their hitters has slugging percentage more than .500. Percentage of .538 by Strasburg is irrelevant, given lesser number of games in which he appeared on the plate.
A momentum which was about to fly out of their hand has been taken back. Building long winning streaks from now onward will be easier for the Nationals.
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