The Washington Nationals dropped the opening game of interleague play of Friday night, losing to the Baltimore Orioles in 11 innings. Nats' starter Edwin Jackson had one of his best performances of the young season, with perhaps his best stuff of the year. His command was perfect and he had both his fastball and breaking ball working. He struck out eight in eight innings and allowed just one run on five hits. Adam Jones knocked in Xavier Avery on an infield single in the first inning. A Nick Markakis double moved Avery to third base, and that was the only hard-hit ball off Jackson.
But Jake Arrieta matched Jackson the entire evening, fanning nine Nats through seven innings. He gave up a solo homer to Ian Desmond in the bottom of the 6th which evened it up. Both bullpens would hold the line there, sending it into extra innings.
The Orioles broke the 1-1 tie on a Markakis bomb to right field. It was the Baltimore slugger's seventh homer of the season, and he went down got a Ryan Mattheus breaking ball that stayed out over the plate. It was the first homer Matteus has given up in 18 appearances this season, but it was a no-doubter.
Ross Detwiler will try to get it back tomorrow against the O's in the second game of the weekend series. Baltimore will counter with Jason Hammel.
We'll have plenty more on this series throughout the weekend here on SB Nation DC, so keep it locked to this StorySteam for all the latest news and updates as they become available. For more on this series and all things Washington Nationals baseball, please head over to Federal Baseball. You can also check out Camden Chat, SB Nation's Baltimore Orioles blog, for some perspective from the other dugout. As always, check out the SB Nation Major League Baseball hub page for more infer on this and all MLB series.