The Washington Nationals ended their three game losing streak Friday night in a 10-inning affair with the Florida Marlins at Sun Life Stadium. First baseman Adam LaRoche hit a sac fly to bring in Jayson Werth in the top of the 10th inning to give the Nationals a 3-2 win.
As they have for most of the season, the Nats won the day on the backs of some good pitching. Starter Jordan Zimmermann pitched six innings giving up two runs on five hits and striking out six. He was pulled in the seventh inning and replaced by Tyler Clippard who perhaps had the most remarkable performance of the night. Clippard came into the game for just two innings, but struck out all six batters he faced. He pitched just 22 pitches and got 11 swing and misses.
Drew Storen pitched a strong ninth and came out for the tenth, but ran into trouble after Greg Dobbs and John Buck had back-to-back singles putting two men on base with no outs. Storen battled and got Omar Infante to ground out while holding the tying run at third and then struck out Wes Helms on the next at-bat. Sean Burnett was then called in to get the final out of the game which he did by causing Chris Coghlan to line out to Jerry Hairston Jr. to seal the victory.
Storen picked up the win and is now 2-1 with a 0.51 ERA and Sean Burnett picked up his fourth save of the year. The Nats other runs were scored by Hairston Jr. and shortstop Ian Desmond.
The Nats improve their record to 15-17 and remain in fourth place in the NL East.