The Washington Nationals put up two touchdowns, two field goals and a safety over the New York Mets on Tuesday evening in a 25-4 victory.
Just hours after general manager Mike Rizzo declared that he believed in his guys, they delivered big time. The Washington Nationals racked up a whopping 25 runs in a demolition of the New York Mets.
It all started when the Nationals sent 12 batters to the plate in the first inning, scoring seven runs. And against their norm this year, they did so without needing the long ball in that inning. Don’t worry, the bombs were coming.
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Daniel Murphy, one of the offensive stars of the night, hit homers in the second and third inning for his third and fourth of the year. In the month of July, he’s hitting .347 with an OPS of .979 and also has more walks than strikeouts.
12 different Nationals also recorded hits on the night, but now it’s time to carry this over to the next few games. A common theme this year has been to slump back to old ways following a game like this. To get back in the race, they need to rewrite that narrative this time.
Zimm breaks franchise hits record
In a historical moment during the game, Ryan Zimmerman managed to pass Tim Wallach for the franchise lead in hits, on a single in the first inning. The hit was the 1,695th hit of his career, all with the Nationals, in his 14th year with the franchise.
There was some doubt initially that it may have been a fielding error, hence no immediate acknowledgment. But once the official scoring was in, he got a curtain call from the Nats faithful for the mammoth accomplishment.
It was part of yet another promising night for Zimmerman since coming off the disabled list. Since his activation, he’s hitting .304 with a home run and five RBI and a .950 OPS. If he can keep this performance level up, then the Nats have a deadly combo at first base with him and Matt Adams.
Roark shows continued improvement
It’s only two starts worth of evidence, but Tanner Roark seems to be righting the wrongs he’s had this season. In those two starts, he’s pitched 15 innings of one-run ball, giving up just seven hits and one walk.
A fair amount of credit for this goes back to some of the work he put in with now former National, Brandon Kintzler. Byron Kerr from MASN Sports wrote an article on what they looked at, which has been evident in the last two appearance on the mound for Roark.
The Nats rotation has been a weak spot on the team for months now. Roark and some other starters need to step up and get back to their performance levels from May that had them as the best in the NL.
The Washington Nationals wrap up the brief two-game set on Wednesday against Noah Syndergaard. Tommy Milone gets his second starts of the year and will be praying for same run support Tanner Roark got.