The Washington Nationals dropped the first game of their series against the Baltimore Orioles, 2-1 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards Friday night.
Jason Hammel allowed just five Washington hits and one unearned run while striking out 10 over eight innings of work. Nationals starter Jordan Zimmermann was not quite as good, allowing eight hits and two earned runs over seven innings while striking out two and walking just one.
The Orioles took a 1-0 lead on a solo home run by Mark Reynolds in the second inning. Washington tied the score in the top of the fifth when Ian Desmond tried to take third on a groundout by Roger Bernadina and wound up scoring when Reynolds' throw got away from third baseman Wilson Betemit.
The tie didn't last through the fifth inning, as J.J. Hardy's double scored Nick Johnson in the bottom of the inning to provide the winning margin.
For more on this series and all things 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.