Washington Nationals outscored by Philadelphia Phillies 2-3 as Edwin Jackson struggles - MLB Update
Starter Edwin Jackson records his seventh loss of the season as the Washington Nationals are beaten 2-3 by the Philadelphia Phillies at Nationals Park, Washington, D.C. on August 1, 2012 in the second game of the three match series.
The Nationals enjoyed an early lead but they were unable to keep building on it throughout the game.
Phillies rightly capitalised on the silence that Washington’s offence observed on Wednesday as they reached the lead in the fifth.
While the Phillies won the game, no way can it be considered a high quality performance by their offence in the season. The fact they were only one run ahead of Washington on Wednesday proves that they have yet to go a long way in achieving the kind of dominance
that the management wants.
Furthermore, Philadelphia can go slow in believing that the team's offensive woes are eliminated, because they relied on just two batters in the game to win as opposed to an all-round contribution from the hitters.
Their short-stop Jimmy Rollins struck two home-runs on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, their first baseman Ryan Howard was hitless.
Phillies’ manager Charlie Manuel cherishes the rare moments of being victorious in a game. He is looking forward to enormous improvements from the players ahead in the season.
"We've got some life to us," Manuel said. "We're having fun. We've got some guys that are trying to really show something, and hopefully we can get better."
Meanwhile, Jackson rues the time when he allowed home-runs to the batters. He traces his failure in the way he threw the balls in the upper portion of the zone, instead of manipulating them and making things harder for the batters.
"I just got hurt on balls up in the zone," Jackson said. "I got behind on some counts. There were times I made pitches when I needed to and I had some good defensive plays behind me, but the three home runs, three solo home runs, two of them were just up,
and one, was middle in, he was just ready for it."
It was one of the few games that saw the Nationals’ starter causing the defeat.
In the next game, the Nationals will be looking to their starter to not allow runs and throws scoreless innings.
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