You could hear a collective sigh of relief coming out of Washington D.C.
The Washington Nationals held on to beat the Florida Marlins 4-3 at Nationals Park and avoid being swept by their NL East rivals. Starter Chien-Ming Wang got the win while closer Drew Storen earned his 38th save of the season. It finally puts a win in the win column for Washington against Florida who have dominated the hometown Nats in their own park since 2008.
Wang pitched magnificently for the majority of his 10th outing of the season. The only mistake he had mid-game was giving up a solo home run to Gaby Sanchez in the fifth. However in the seventh, with two outs Wang gave up a 2-run home run to Brett Hayes to pull the Marlins within one by the score of 4-3. It was a sour mark on Wang's day. His final line was 6.2 innings, three earned runs on six hits, walking no one and striking out five. Overall, yet another impressive outing for the big Taiwanese right-hander.
With the help of a Bryan Petersen error in the fourth, Nationals second baseman Danny Espinosa was able to score both Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse on a RBI single while getting to second base himself. First baseman Chris Marrero then hit Espinosa in for the run that would end up determining the game on a RBI ground-rule double. Marrero finished the day 1-for-2 with two RBIs.
The Nats are now 72-79 and in third place in the NL East. With Sunday's win the Nats set a single-season most home wins record by winning their 42nd game at home in Nationals Park in 2011. It is the most home wins the Nationals have earned since the franchise moved from Montreal to Washington in 2005.