Baltimore Orioles’ Mark Trumbo slides home to score on a sacrifice fly by J.J. Hardy during the first inning of a baseball game against the Washington Nationals, Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016, in Washington.
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Now, they will travel to Nationals Park, a stadium Orioles fans are sure to fill, with a chance to win the MASN Cup. Add Reynaldo Lopez, who has four starts, with the past two very good, and the team can get by for now without Strasburg.
Harper became Katie Ledecky’s medal holder while the swimmer threw out the ceremonial first pitch. 4-1 Orioles after one.
Cole (0-1) struck out eight and walked two in his season debut.
Chicago’s Kris Bryant hit his 32nd homer of the year – tied for the NL lead – while Addison Russell and Jason Heyward also cleared the fences. The Orioles tallied four runs, highlighted by a two-run homer from Manny Machado and RBIs from Jonathan Schoop and Matt Wieters.
The 19-year-old met several Nationals before the game, including Harper, whom she called one of her favorites. Still 5-2 Orioles. He has hit at least 30 home runs in four of the last five seasons.
Daniel Murphy fumbled a grounder to second base that let in two runs, Clint Robinson was guilty of a base-running gaffe and the Nationals were victimized three times by, of all things, replay reviews.
With runners on second and third and now two down the Orioles still had a chance to score runs.sort of.
Chris Davis is hitting.381 with one homer in 21 at-bats against Scherzer. In a field with no dominant starting pitching candidates, Britton and his minuscule ERA have gotten as low as 0.53 prior to Wednesday’s outing; he leads the American League with 38 saves, and maybe most importantly, the Orioles are in the thick of the playoff hunt and without Britton to rely on, they may not be in position to make it back to October.
Bryce Harper singled in the next at bat and scored on a double by Anthony Rendon, 10-8, and Wilson Ramos reached on a fielder’s choice that failed to get Rendon at second.
As of 5:30pm Tuesday afternoon, tickets are still available on the Nationals website and start at $23 each.
Are the Nationals a safe play on the runline tonight for bettors when they host the Orioles at 7:05PM ET? “One kid loves the Orioles and another kid loves the Nationals”, said Nationals Manager Dusty Baker at Camden Yards before the series opener.
The Nationals’ +137 run differential was also the second-best in the majors, behind only the Cubs’ major league-leading +214 run differential.
Rendon made it 2-1 Nationals when, leading off the fourth, he homered to left-center on an 0-1 pitch.
Bundy gave up two runs, walked four and struck out four.
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In the seventh inning, the Nationals cut the deficit to one with a leadoff home run from SS Danny Espinosa but CL Zach Britton secured the win for the Orioles with a ideal ninth to earn his 38th save of the year.
