Nationals' lefty John Lannan has battled Marlins' ace Josh Johnson to a 2-2 tie, behind Jayson Werth's first home run in a Nationals uniform and a Danny Espinosa RBI groundout.
Johnson was dominant early for Florida, striking out six Washington batters through four innings of play. Werth got to him first, belting an opposite field home run in the fourth, and the Nationals again got to the young righty in the fifth after two Hanley Ramirez miscues in the field.
Despite allowing four hits and surrendering two walks (against three strikeouts) through his first four innings, Lannan has held the Marlins to just two runs, all in the first.
However, this is not of course a time for the Nats to rest on their laurels. For a team that has struggled at the plate all season long, they need to jump on a starter showing signs of weakness and hopefully crack the code of a bullpen that has to this point in the series owned them.