The Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals are two teams currently heading in different directions. The Nationals come into Wednesday night's game riding a four game win streak. The Cardinals are the losers of four straight. The Nationals are last place in the NL East and slowly trying to catch up with the fourth place New York Mets. The Cardinals were the tops of the NL Central now falling and tied for first with the Milwaukee Brewers. Wednesday night the Nationals hope that trend continues.
After rallying and shocking the Cardinals on Tuesday night, the Nationals will look for that elusive fifth straight win and put it in the hands of pitcher Livan Hernandez (3-8, 4.15 ERA). Once again Hernandez will be looking to bounce back from a bad outing (5 1/3 innings and allowed six runs on nine hits against the San Diego Padres) amidst controversy over his possible involvement with known Puerto Rican drug traffickers. When the trafficker story first broke back in April, Hernandez's next start was a good one with the Cuban righty perhaps taking his annoyance at the situation out on the other team. Whatever demons Hernandez has, Nationals fans are hoping he conjures them up tonight against the Cards and Kyle McClellan (6-2, 3.86 ERA).
Nationals Line-Up
Jayson Werth – RF
Roger Bernadina – CF
Ryan Zimmerman – 3B
Laynce Nix – LF
Michael Morse – 1B
Danny Espinosa – 2B
Ivan Rodriguez – C
Livan Hernandez – P
Ian Desmond – SS