Stephen Strasburg Strikes Out Nine In Washington Nationals Win Over Yankees
By Ricky Keeler
Stephen Strasburg was dominant and the Nats’ offense scored six runs in multiple innings in a 13-0 win over the Yankees
Tonight, the Washington Nationals took on the New York Yankees at Space Coast Stadium. It was a great pitching matchup on paper between Stephen Strasburg and Masahiro Tanaka, but Strasburg was the much better pitcher today. Strasburg shut out the Yankees over five innings as the Nats blew out the Yankees by a final score of 13-0.
Strasburg had all of his pitches working today. Over the course of the five innings, he gave up six hits, and struck out nine batters on 68 pitches (51 strikes). He got into a bases loaded, no out jam in the top of the third after three straight singles. But, Strasburg struck out Aaron Hicks swinging and got Dustin Ackley to ground into a 6-3 inning ending double play to get out of the jam.
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The Nats’ offense got on the board in the opening inning. After a single by Ben Revere with a balk by Tanaka moving him to second, Anthony Rendon drove Revere in with a double to right to put the Nats up 1-0. Rendon went 3-for-3 with two doubles today.
It was the third inning where the Nats did most of their damage against Tanaka as they batted around in the inning. Stephen Drew (former Yankee) led off the inning with a deep solo home run to right, his first home run of the spring. Four batters later, with the bases loaded, Ryan Zimmerman hit a RBI groundout to short to score Revere and give the Nats a 3-0 lead.
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Later in the inning, Jayson Werth drove in Rendon with a single to left and Chris Heisey drove in Zimmerman with a double down the left field line, but Werth was thrown out at the plate. The scoring would conclude when Wilson Ramos hit a two-run homer off Tanaka to increase the lead to 7-0. It was Ramos’ third home run of the spring.
After Strasburg, Jonathan Papelbon came in to pitch the top of the sixth and gave up one hit (Ackley leadoff single) and struck out one. Yusmeiro Petit, Sean Burnett, Matt Belisle, and Oliver Perez threw the final three innings and combined to strike out three batters.
In the bottom of the eighth, the Nats tacked on six more runs thanks to some errors from the Yankees’ defense. Tyler Moore led off the inning with a single to left. Then, Reed Johnson reached base and advanced to second on an error by Tyler Wade. Moore would come around to score on an error by third baseman Donovan Solano on a ball hit by his brother, Jhonatan Solano.
Later in the inning, Osvaldo Abreu drove in Johnson with a RBI single to center to put the Nationals ahead, 9-0. Later in the inning, Scott Sizemore singled to right, but an error by Cesar Puello allowed all three runs to score. The lead would go to 13-0 when Sizemore scored on a base hit by den Dekker and another Puello error.
Next: Nats Re-Assign Giolito To Minor League Camp
Next Game: The Washington Nationals will stay in Viera as they take on the St. Louis Cardinals tomorrow afternoon at 1:05 PM ET. It will be a matchup of aces as Adam Wainwright will take the mound for St. Louis against Max Scherzer for the Nats.