After five straight losses, the Miami Marlins come to the nation's capital to sweep the Washington Nationals in a three-game series.
The Nationals couldn’t avoid the clean sweep by the Marlins on Wednesday afternoon after a late offensive run by Miami ended in a 4-1 loss to close out the three-game series.
Starting pitcher Andrew Alvarez only needed seven pitches for a strong first inning, while the first inning was also silent for the Nationals.
But it was the Marlins who were able to get on the board first in the second inning. With two outs, that wouldn’t be an issue for Esteury Ruiz who was able to homer the four-seam fastball to left for the first lead of the day. The Marlins out-homered the Nationals, 12-3, during this three-game series.
Looking to respond before things slipped away for the Nationals, Keibert Ruiz managed to hit a lead off single in the third for the first base runner for the Nats this game. Luis García Jr. earned his second walk in this series. With two base runners, the Nationals have something to work with to generate runs.
Keibert Ruiz lead off single gets things warmed up for the Nationals.James Wood would also find himself earning a walk to load up the bases for the Nationals. With Dylan Crews at bat, a grand slam is on his mind.
Crews couldn’t find a grand slam but he was able to make contact with the ball into the fielder's choice to shortstop. The combination of Crews hit and a fielding error by Marlins Otto López allowed for Ruiz to sneak in a run for the Nationals to tie things up, 1-1, heading into the fourth inning.
Alvarez finished his day after 4.2 innings pitched where he allowed just four hits, one earned run, one walk, and five strikeouts with a 3.54 ERA. Brad Lord would come to relieve Alvarez to try and keep the Marlins quiet behind the bat.
It would be a few more innings before things picked back up in the nation’s capital and it looked like it was going to be the Marlins who regained the lead in the sixth inning. On his second pitch of the inning, the batter was safe at first after Lord recorded an error. Lord would also allow two batters to walk.
With runners on first and second, Lord needed to regain control on the mound before the game got out of control. Fortunately, his four-seam fastball was enough to strike out Owen Caissie swinging and leave potential Marlin runners stranded on base to close out the inning.
Since the Jacob Young single in the fourth that ended the inning with a double play, Marlins starting pitcher Max Meyer was been on fire and he retired eight straight Nats keep the home team silenced.
Max Meyer's was hot on the mound for the Marlins with seven innings pitched and recording seven strikeouts.Even though the Marlins haven’t earned any more runs they are still more efficient behind the bat. Between walks and some hits, they are at least managing to make it to the bases whereas the Nationals haven’t had much success.
Now in the top of the eighth inning the Marlins managed to load up the bases with no outs. Clayton Beeter was able to secure the first out after he struck out Caissie. Nasim Nuñez secured the second out after coming up with yet another impressive defensive performance to get a runner out on his way to home. But, it isn’t long until the Marlins were back in front of the Nationals after a single to right gave way for two runs making it 3-1 to close out the inning.
Miami cushioned their lead in the ninth after Kyle Stowers tripled to right to bring a runner in to make it 4-1 with no outs. Luckily, the Marlins wouldn’t earn any more runs despite that they had bases loaded. But the Nationals would still need to find three more runs if they wanted to tie things up and four runs to secure the home win.
It looked promising for the Nationals after a hit by pitch walked Crews. Curtis Mead was able to single. Now with a runner on first and second the Nats were still in it. However, the Nationals fell short once again after Daylen Lile sealed the loss with the third out.
The Nationals will head out West for the first time this season, starting in Arizona to take on the Diamondbacks. The three-game series will start Friday at 9:40 p.m. before wrapping up Sunday afternoon.
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