The Seattle Mariners had complete control of Tuesday night's game against the Washington Nationals. Pitcher Doug Fister held the Nationals off with an eight inning, one run on three hit performance and the Seattle offense roughed up Livan Hernandez to take a commanding lead into the ninth-inning. With the final play of the game finished, Seattle has to be wondering what happened as the Nationals pulled off an astounding five-run rally in the ninth to win 6-5.
Down to their final out of the game, Wilson Ramos stepped to the plate for the Nationals with two men on. Seattle reliever David Pauley came into the game after reliever Brandon League left the game after a Michael Morse line drive hit his leg. Pauley served Ramos a change up on the third pitch of the at-bat and Ramos made contact with the ball, dropping his bat and raising his arms in response because he knew the outcome: a three-run walk-off home run over the left field wall. It was the icing on the cake of a five run rally in the last inning of the game. Jerry Hairston Jr. and Danny Espinosa also collected RBi singles in the inning. Roger Bernadina also had an RBI in the game.
Tuesday's walk-off gave Nationals starter Livan Hernandez a sigh of relief. Hernandez followed up his complete game performance against St. Louis with a rotten egg against Seattle. He gave up five runs on 10 hits and surrendered a lead off hit in all four innings he pitched.
The Nationals return to being one win away from .500 with a 36-37 record and are third in the NL East.