The Nationals won their first game of the 2011 season yesterday when they defeated the Braves 6-3, thanks in large part to John Lannan's steady performance and Rick Ankiel's two run homerun.
Today, they will look to take their first series of the year when they send out one of their top young arms, Jordan Zimmermann, to take on the veteran righty Tim Hudson.
Zimmermann has already gone through a lot in his young career, as he had Tommy John surgery performed on him over a year ago, making most of his time spent in the 2010 season in rehab. It now seems that he is all the way back from the surgery, as manager Jim Riggleman does not look to limit his pitch count this afternoon. If that is true, the Nationals are hoping to see a glimpse of what they thought he could be prior to his surgery.
On the offensive side, the Nats showed yesterday that they can play fundamental baseball, as two of their runs came on sacrifice flies. And while Ankiel is the one who provided the power stroke yesterday, the Nats fans are still looking for their big guys, Ryan Zimmerman and newly acquired Jayson Werth, to start showing the potential of this new lineup.
Today's lineups for both teams:
Braves:
Prado – LF
McLouth – CF
Jones – 3B
McCann – C
Uggla – 2B
Heyward – RF
Gonzalez – SS
Freeman – 1B
Hudson – P
Nationals:
Desmond – SS
Werth – RF
Zimmerman – 3B
LaRoche – 1B
Morse – LF
Ankiel – CF
Espinosa – 2B
Rodriguez – C
Zimmermann – P