The Washington Nationals were down to their last out, and last strike, before Daniel Murphy hit a game-tying solo blast into the second deck in right field for a pinch hit home run in the bottom of the ninth that sent the series finale with the Pittsburgh Pirates to extra innings.
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“That was my fault”.
There are tangible explanations for Strasburg’s numbers, and Baker said it starts off the field.
Adam Frazier went 3 for 6 with three doubles, and Marte and Jordy Mercer had three hits. “It was my mistake”. It will go down as just one loss, but the Nationals just got the energy drained out of them in the longest regular season game in team history. Niese struck out Danny Espinosa with two runners on base in the bottom of the 18th to end the game.
“I believe this is great motivation for the rest of the season”, Marte said through a translator. “He needs to get back here and help us and get involved in the fight with us”.
The Pirates barely avoided getting swept yesterday after some 18th-inning magic by Starling Marte propelled the Pirates to a 2-1 win. Center fielder Michael A. Taylor relayed to shortstop Espinosa, who threw to Ramos.
The Nationals won a 16-inning game at home over the Minnesota Twins on April 24 when Chris Heisey hit a walk-off homer. That same day the Pirates won a 13-inning game at Arizona, which had been their longest game by innings this season until Sunday.
And after that… the best way I have to explain this is that I was watching the game while reading bits of J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise, and the book and the game worked together perfectly for me as dramas of increasing senselessness. Murphy did not start due to a sore hamstring. “Mark is so tough”.
Any individual baseball game has a roller coaster of emotions for fans. “He was very deserving to be there”. But a Ramos liner was right to second baseman Josh Harrison, who caught the ball and stepped on second to double up Werth.
Turner wouldn’t have had a chance to single that inning at all if it weren’t for a flawless relay executed in the top of the 16th. His hit with one out scored Frazier, who led off with his second double of the game. If RHP Joe Ross (7-4, 3.49) isn’t activated off the disabled list, RHP Lucas Giolito (0-0, 4.70) will make his third major league start against Dodgers LHP Scott Kazmir (7-3, 4.52).
Rays 5, Orioles 2 • Evan Longoria homered twice and Tampa Bay’s Jake Odorizzi (Highland High) picked up his first home victory this season by allowing two runs and seven hits in six innings.
The right-hander gave up a single to Ben Revere with one out in the first and then retired the next 14 batters before Espinosa was hit by a pitch to lead off the sixth.
Kuhl, 23, from the University of DE, arrived with a 6.08 ERA and tossed six shutout innings. The Missouri product surrendered a total of one earned run and nine hits while striking out 26 in 20 1/3 innings over his last three starts. Scherzer threw a no-hitter at home against the Pirates on June 20, 2015.
“A lot of good came out of today”, Scherzer said of his outing.
“It was a start we needed out of him, and I think it’s a start he expected out of himself”, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. I knew they were out of men. Schugel, though, got a fly ball and a double play to bail Caminero out, and the game headed to the 11th. On the other side of Sunday’s matchup, the Washington Nationals now hold a six-game lead in the NL East, and look primed for a deep playoff run. Washington 2B Daniel Murphy, the leading hitter in the league at.348, was out of the starting lineup for the third day in a row with a hamstring injury.
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Many more components of Sunday’s game will go unnoticed – like the fact that Anthony Rendon was unavailable with what Baker described as severe flu-like symptoms, which left the Nationals with a exhausted bullpen and non-existent bench by the 18th inning. Cole entered Saturday 2-0 with a 1.74 ERA in three career starts against the Nationals.
