On a day where offense was hard to come by, Tanner Roark was dominant as the Washington Nationals shut out the Twins 2-0.
This afternoon, the Washington Nationals (13-4) took on the Minnesota Twins in the second game of a three game series. Daniel Murphy and Michael Taylor both had the day off, but it didn’t matter as Tanner Roark shut out the Twins in the best start of his career as the Nats won the game, 2-0.
In this game, Roark went seven innings, gave up no runs on two hits, walked three batters, and struck out a career-high 15 Twins on 121 pitches (78 strikes). The only two hits he gave up were a two-out single by Joe Mauer in the top of the first and a one-out double by Max Kepler in the second.
With his 15 K’s, Roark had the third most strikeouts of any pitcher in Nats’ history with his teammate, Max Scherzer, being the only pitcher who has struck out more batters in a game than him:
The Washington Nationals’ offense did not have much success against Phil Hughes, but they did find a way to score two runs in the bottom of the first. After an Anthony Rendon single and a Bryce Harper double with one out, Ryan Zimmerman drove them both in with a base hit to center field.
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Zimmerman and Harper were the only two Washington Nationals hitters to have multi-hit games today (Harper had two doubles) As for Hughes, the Twins’ right-hander went seven innings, gave up two runs on six hits, struck out two, and walked two on 94 pitches (66 strikes) in the loss.
After Roark, Blake Treinen started the eighth inning by walking Jorge Polanco, but he bounced back and struck out Brian Dozier. Then, Dusty Baker went to Oliver Perez and the left-hander got Eddie Rosario to fly out to center field and Joe Mauer to strike out swinging on a slider to end the inning.
In the ninth, Jonathan Papelbon retired the Twins in order, including a strikeout of Miguel Sano, to record his seventh save of the season. The Nats’ pitchers made franchise history as the four of them combined to strike out 18 batters:
Next: 3 Takeaways From 8-4 Win Over Twins
Next Game: The Washington Nationals will look for the sweep against the Minnesota Twins (5-13) tomorrow afternoon at Nats Park. You can catch the game on MASN at 1:35 PM ET. Stephen Strasburg (3-0, 1.25 ERA) will get the start for the Nats against against Tyler Duffey for the Twins. Duffey will be making his 2016 debut since Ervin Santana has been scratched from his start due to a stiff back.