Washington Nationals outclassed by San Francisco Giants 1-6 as Jordan Zimmermann struggles - MLB
The starter Jordan Zimmermann faces his seventh loss of the season as the Washington Nationals are beaten 1-6 by the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park, San Francisco, California in the second game of the three match series on August 14, 2012.
The Nationals’ offence struggled on Tuesday against the Giants' starter Madison Bumgarner who threw the complete game.
Managing only one run and five hits in the game, their batters were offered barely any opportunity to score runs. They were not allowed to experience any high scoring inning.
In the last few games whenever the Nationals were trailed by runs their batters stepped up and posted runs late in the innings. As a result, they recorded wins even after letting the opponents leaving them behind at the start. However on Tuesday, this was
not the case.
Trailed by one run at the start of the eighth, they were unable to experience a come from behind type of run-rampage.
Far from it, the Nationals' relief pitcher Drew Storen allowed Giants to strengthen their lead further, making it extremely difficult for the team to bounce back.
Meanwhile, Zimmermann gave up two runs as a starter. He threw little more than five innings.
Most of the relief pitchers followed him with the scoreless innings but Drew Storen struggled to contain batters. By allowing four runs in little less than one inning, he helped the Giants to take their lead to a substantial level.
Nationals’ manager Davey Johnson does not believe Zimmermann was poor on the mound. However he feels his counterpart Bumgarner was even better and thus he won the game for the Giants.
"I thought Jordan threw the ball good," Davey Johnson said. "I've seen him throw better, but Bumgarner was just too tough."
In the meantime, Zimmermann is dissatisfied with the way he threw in the game.
"I didn't have my best stuff, that's for sure," Zimmermann said. "I was missing here and there a little bit. I just wasn't getting the misses."
It was one of the few games that saw Washington’s relief pitcher leaking runs and their offence failing to produce. They will be looking to learn lessons from the defeat and use them for winning the last match of the series.
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