Washington Nationals Reaction: Strasburg Now 8-0 After Win Over Mets
Last night, Stephen Strasburg won Round two against Matt Harvey as the Washington Nationals defeated the Mets, 7-4
At Nationals Park last night, the Washington Nationals brought out the long ball against the New York Mets as they used five home runs to defeat the New York Mets 7-4 and increased their lead in the NL East to 1.5 games. Plus, they are now 3-2 against New York this season with one more game in the series to come tomorrow.
Plus, it was round two between Stephen Strasburg and Matt Harvey. Strasburg got the upper hand in round one when Washington scored seven runs in the third inning against Harvey. Last night, Strasburg fell behind early, but the Nats’ offense helped him out and got him the lead quickly.
It was another dominant outing for Strasburg as he is now the second pitcher in the National League this season to get to eight wins (Jake Arrieta of the Chicago Cubs). Plus, the Washington Nationals have now won 14 consecutive games that Strasburg has pitched, dating back to last season.
As for Harvey, even though he had a good start to the game, the Nats’ offense hit three home runs in the fourth and fifth inning combined to pull away and get a 5-1 lead. Harvey ended up only finishing five innings as he picked up his fourth loss in his last five starts.
Before Tanner Roark takes on Steven Matz this afternoon at Nats Park, check out my three takeaways from last night’s 7-4 win by the Washington Nationals.
Next: Home Runs The Story Of The Series
Home Runs The Story Of The Series
Through the first two games of this series, the two teams have combined to hit 11 home runs. On Monday night, the Mets hit four home runs in their 7-1 win. While New York hit two home runs last night, the Nats responded with five of their own to get the win.
The five home runs by the Nats came from Ryan Zimmerman, Anthony Rendon, Daniel Murphy, Ben Revere, and Wilson Ramos. You know the offense is having a great night when Revere hits a home run, which was only the fifth of his career.
In the fourth, Zimmerman and Rendon hit back-to-back home runs to give Washington a 2-1 lead. Both of their home runs came on changeups from Harvey. This month, Zimmerman has five home runs (tied with Murphy for the team lead) and 14 RBi’s (second on the team) while Rendon is tied for third with Ramos in RBI’s (13).
One inning later, Murphy continued his great hitting against the Mets through the first five games when he crushed a fastball into the second deck in right field for a two-run home run. Murphy, who had another multi-hit game, is now 8-for-19 against New York with two home runs (both home runs against Harvey) and six RBI’s.
While the Nats’ offense doesn’t hit home runs the way the Mets have been hitting them season, their five homers last night puts them at 55 for the year (tied for third in the National League) and they are second in home runs this month with 29 (Mets have the lead with 32). As the weather is heating up, more home runs should be flying out of Nationals Park.
Next: Strasburg Stays Perfect
Strasburg Stays Perfect
Even though the home runs were the main storyline in last night’s game, Strasburg put together another great performance on the mound. The Nats’ right-hander went 6.2 innings, gave up two runs on four hits, struck out 11, and walked two on 108 pitches (74 strikes).
Strasburg had all of his pitches working last night as he threw 16 first pitch strikes to the 26 batters he faced and struck out six of the first nine batters. He made one mistake in the fourth inning when he left a 2-1 fastball over the middle of the plate to Asdrubal Cabrera, who would hit a solo home run to right.
Out of the 11 strikeouts that Strasburg had, five of them ended with a fastball. The most important strikeout of the night was his last one when he got rookie Ty Kelly to strike out swinging in a nine-pitch at-bat in the top of the seventh. At that point, Kelly was representing the tying run.
After Strasburg’s performance last night, he has now struck out ten or more batters in five of his last ten starts and in three of his last four outings. His 86 strikeouts in eight games are second in the NL behind only Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers (95).
Last night, the Washington Nationals needed a dominant outing from Strasburg after the bad game Gio Gonzalez had on Monday and Strasburg delivered. As Mark Zuckerman of MASN pointed out after the game, Strasburg’s numbers since the second half of last season have been outstanding:
Strasburg's last 23 starts (since returning from neck injury):
— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) May 25, 2016
16-2, 2.22 ERA, 149.2 IP, 105 H, 37 ER, 30 BB, 196 K
Next: Rivero Gets Nats Out Of Big Jam
Rivero Gets Nats Out Of Big Jam
If there was one inning where Strasburg struggled last night, it was in the seventh inning. New York put runners on the corners with no outs after a Yoenis Cespedes double and a Neil Walker single. Then, Eric Campbell hit a groundout to short to cut the lead to 5-2.
After a Kevin Plawecki walk, Dusty Baker stuck with Strasburg to face Ty Kelly and ended up striking him out on nine pitches. With two outs, Mets’ manager Terry Collins made the right move and announced a right-handed batter (Juan Lagares) to pinch-hit for Hansel Robles.
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At 108 pitches, Baker pulled Strasburg from the game and went with the left-hander, Felipe Rivero. Even though it wasn’t a lefty vs. lefty matchup, Rivero still struck out Lagares to end the inning and strand the two base runners.
In the eighth, Rivero kept the dominance going when he retired the Mets in order, including strikeouts of Asdrubal Cabrera and Michael Conforto. Last night was only the second time this season that Rivero had three strikeouts in a relief appearance (May 7 against the Cubs).
Next: District Daily: Kelley Dominating In Bullpen
When it felt as if the momentum had the chance to turn in the Mets’ favor, Rivero was able to stop the run scoring and the Nats gave the bullpen the added insurance runs, which were needed considering Shawn Kelley gave up a two-run home run to Campbell in the ninth. It was another spot were Baker put Rivero in a high leverage situation and he found his way out of it.