Detwiler had been staked to leads of 4-1 and 5-1 in his first two starts of the season only to see his bullpen squander the advantages. On this night though, the Nationals were able to score enough to dissuade any Miami comeback plans in the late innings, with Tyler Clippard and Rafael Soriano wrapping up the game with scoreless frames.

For his part, Detwiler now sits sixth in the National League with a 0.60 ERA after hurling seven one-run innings against Miami on Wednesday, striking out five and throwing a career-high 107 pitches. Amazingly, 100 of those 107 pitches were fastballs, either the four-seamer or the sinking two-seamer Detwiler employs with such great success.

“He’s a great guy to look at if you want to see that he uses his best pitch 85 percent of the time,” third baseman Ryan Zimmerman said to MLB.com’s Adam Berry. “And the fastball, a well-located fastball, is still the hardest pitch to hit in the big leagues. I think some people forget that sometimes.”

Washington’s offense came scattered throughout the game, with a good chunk of it coming courtesy of Kurt Suzuki and Bryce Harper.

Nationals manager Davey Johnson watched Ross Detwiler deal yet again on Wednesday, shutting down the Marlins over seven strong. (Image: Steve Mitchell, USA Today Sports)

Suzuki, elevated to the everyday catcher’s role with the hamstring injury to Wilson Ramos, was everywhere. He drove in Washington’s second run of the game in the second inning on a sacrifice fly, then made it a 3-0 game in the fifth with solo homer to left that almost disrupted operations at the Clevelander, undoubtedly the most interesting place at Marlins Park this season.

He wasn’t done there, tripling to lead off the seventh and scoring on an RBI single by Steve Lombardozzi, once again filling in for Danny Espinosa at second base. Espinosa, with the bruised forearm suffered on Sunday, took some ground balls before Wednesday’s game but is shooting to be back in the Washington lineup on Friday night in the Nationals opener in New York.

Harper, meanwhile, collected four hits despite the lingering effects of the stomach flu that kept both he and Denard Span out of Tuesday’s game. Span was sufficiently ill enough to miss Wednesday’s game as well, and Harper probably could have used another night off himself. But instead, the 20-year-old shook off an in-game vomiting spell and persistent nausea to record his second career four-hit game, earning an RBI in the ninth inning by beating out an infield single.

“I was still struggling. The biggest thing was trying to keep everything down and fluids down,” Harper said afterward to Berry. “I think getting in the box and swinging made my head spin a little bit. It was just a matter of trying to have good ABs and trying to get some knocks and trying to help the team out.”

With the series win over the Marlins, the Nationals now sit at 9-6, 3 1/2 games behind the Atlanta Braves in what will surely be a tightly-contested National League East race. Washington now heads to New York to await the Mets, who still have to wrap up a snowy series in Denver on Thursday afternoon. Washington will send Stephen Strasburg (1-2, 2.95 ERA) to the hill on Friday night at Citi Field against New York’s Matt Harvey (3-0, 0.82) in a battle of two of the top young pitchers in the National League.

In fact, manager Davey Johnson had a decidedly un-baseball-like adjective he used to describe the contest.

“It’s a boring game when we get only three hits,” Johnson said to Bill Ladson of MLB.com. “That’s a boring game to me.”

Craig Stammen threw well against the Marlins Wednesday, but only three hits from the lineup spelled a 5-1 loss for Washington. (Image: Steve Mitchell, US Presswire)

A pre-game glance at the lineups would not have had many fans predicting boring, as the Nationals had more than half its starters in the game from the outset. Jayson Werth and Adam LaRoche made their spring debuts, and Werth joined Denard Span and Bryce Harper in the first unveiling of Washington’s new outfield. But that quartet went 0-for-8 with five strikeouts, an indicative sample of Washington’s struggles with Miami pitching on the day.

Werth struck out looking twice in his first spring game, apparently choosing to spend his plate appearances working on his batting eye. “Werth was tracking,” Johnson told Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post.

Harper, meanwhile, saw his spring batting average drop down to a worrisome .600 after his 0-for-2 day, making his chances of coming north with the team even slimmer. (Sarcasm alert!)

Dan Haren made his first appearance with a Curly W on his hat, throwing two innings and giving up one run while striking out three. His velocity seemed to be a little up from last season, when everyone was concerned, averaging between 89-91 MPH on the radar gun. The Marlins got him right out of the gate, with leadoff batter Christian Yelich tripling and scoring on a sacrifice fly by Donovan Solano. A single and an error by Haren made things even more hairy, but the veteran worked out of the jam and spun a perfect second inning to end his day on a high note.

The Marlins scored four more runs in the sixth and seventh innings off Tanner Roark, who went 6-17 as a starter at AAA Syracuse last season.

Washington’s lone run of the day came in the eighth. Danny Espinosa‘s first spring hit, sandwiched between a pair of walks, gave Washington a bases-loaded, no-out situation against Miami’s Braulio Lara. But Will Rhymes fouled out to third for the first out, and even though Carlos Rivero was able to get one home with a sacrifice fly, the possibility of a big inning was gone.

Craig Stammen and Drew Storen combined for three scoreless innings out of Washington’s bullpen, which also got a perfect inning from left-hander Fernando Abad, formerly of the Houston Astros, who continued his strong spring.

Stephen Strasburg will take to the hill Thursday at 6:05 pm as the Nationals welcome the New York Mets to Viera, a game that can be seen on MASN and the MLB Network.

On the day when ace Stephen Strasburg was officially shut down following a disappointing start Friday night, the Washington Nationals (86-53) successfully overcame a treacherous outing by Ross Detwiler (L, 9-7) Saturday afternoon in a 7-6 extra-innings victory over the Miami Marlins (62-78).  Though Miami is a whopping 24.5 games behind Washington in the NL East, this is a crucial victory for the Nats given the fact players had to sit through a 2 hour 33 minute rain delay.

The Marlins would get out to a quick lead to start the game, as Gorkys Hernandez and Giancarlo Stanton each jacked solo shots to put Miami up 2-0 in the 1st.  Detwiler would continue to struggle in the 2nd, as he gave up a double, walk and RBI single to Donovan Solano that extended the lead to a worrisome 3-0.

Thankfully, the Nats responded in the 3rd, as a homer by Jesus Flores would cut the lead to a controllable 3-1 deficit.  Washington would strike once more in the 4th after Ryan Zimmerman and Ian Desmond would both single to put two runners quickly on base.  While Desmond would later be stranded, Danny Espinosa successfully added to the home team’s cause with an RBI double to score Zimmerman.

Though the Nats had the lead cut to 3-2 as the 4th came to a close, Detwiler failed to settle down and keep the game within reach.  He gave up two leadoff walks to Solano and Carlos Lee in the 5th, and a rare error by Adam LaRoche allowed the Marlins to tack another one on the board.  Catcher John Buck would make matters worse for Washington as he smoked an RBI single to extend the lead to 5-2 in favor of Miami.

While the white-hot Bryce Harper hit a solo homerun in the bottom half of the 5th to bring the lead back to within two, the Marlins just wouldn’t go away, even against the mostly-reliable long reliever Craig Stammen in the 7th.  Solano continued his dominant outing with a double to lead off the top of the inning, and a sac fly by Jose Reyes that brought Solano to third allowed the young second baseman to score on a Ryan Zimmerman error.

Reliever Christian Garcia continues to pitch well for the Nationals, and the right-hander could easily turn out to be a terrific reliever for Washington come playoff time. (Image Credit: Brad Mills-US PRESSWIRE)

Despite the continued onslaught of runs by the black-clad squad from Miami, the Nats would strike back in the 8th against reliever A.J. Ramos.  Ramos gave up a leadoff walk to Harper, and after manager Ozzie Guillen was forced to come out to the mound following a 2-0 count to Ryan Zimmerman, the Nats’ powerful third baseman would jack a 2-run shot on the very next pitch to bring Washington back within one run, 6-5.  Michael Morse and LaRoche would each knock singles to put the go-ahead run aboard later in the inning, and after a fielder’s choice play, steal by Desmond, and intentional walk to Jose Flores, the bases were juiced for the Shark aka Roger Bernadina with two outs.  Unfortunately, the Nats couldn’t convert and stranded all three runners, as Bernie would strike out to end the inning.

After the nearly three-hour rain delay aforementioned, Heath Bell came in to try to seal the game for the Fish.  Most of the crowd had departed by this point, but the Nats began to play as if nothing had happened.  While it took him seven pitches, the Bearded Wonder aka Jayson Werth would smash a 427 foot homer to straightaway center to tie the game!  Bell would strike out the rest of the side, but thankfully for the Nats, the damage was done.  Tie game headed into the 10th.

Drew Storen would come in and strike out the side himself, and after a couple of singles by LaRoche and Desmond and an intentional walk of Danny Espinosa, the bases were loaded for pinch-hitter Kurt Suzuki.  Unfortunately, the Nats wouldn’t convert here on a fielder’s choice that got LaRoche out at the plate.  However, just two pitches later recent call-up Corey Brown successfully completed the comeback  with a perfectly executed RBI single.  Another Curly W in the books!

Champ of the Game: A bunch of champs for the Nats this afternoon, and while both Werth and Brown were clutch, Ryan Zimmerman gets the cake.  He went 2-3 with two runs, two RBIs, and the homer to keep DC within reach.

For the Marlins, Donovan Solano was outstanding.  He went 2-4 with a double, two runs, and an RBI.

Chump of the Game: Unfortunately, Ross Detwiler was the one to keep the Nats in trouble throughout the afternoon.  Final line: 5IP, 7H, 5R (3ER), 3BB, 3K.

A.J. Flores was pretty terrible coming out of the bullpen for the away team, even worse than Bell in my opinion.  Didn’t record an out and gave up the 2-run shot to Zimmerman in the 8th.

Unsung Hero: One extremely promising note is that reliever Christian Garcia looks like he’s here to stay!  The Triple-A star pitched another solid inning of relief, recording two strikeouts and a groundout on just nine pitches of work.

Next Game: Tomorrow, 1:35PM at Nationals Park.  Familiar face Ricky Nolasco (11-12, 4.64ERA) takes on Edwin Jackson (9-9, 3.63ERA) in the series finale between the two clubs.  This will be a crucial start for Jackson as his inconsistencies have hindered him throughout this season and he’s coming off two straight winning decisions.