Tag Archives: carlos gomez

Wilson Ramos to the rescue, Nationals top the Brewers 8-5 on the 4th of July

WP – D. Storen (3-2) LP – T. Gorzellany (1-1)

S – R. Soriano (22)

Wilson Ramos has been missing from the Washington Nationals lineup since May 16th.  He returned with a bang, hitting a game winning three run homerun in the bottom of the seventh inning along with a two run single in the sixth, giving him 5 RBIs for the day.  Taylor Jordan had a great effort in his pursuit of his first win, pitching five and two thirds innings, giving up two runs on six hits.  He was in line for the win as he left the game, unfortunately the bullpen couldn’t keep the lead.  This is the second solid performance from Jordan since getting called up from AA with Dan Haren on the disabled list.

Tom Gorzellany, a former National, took the loss this Independence Day for the Brewers, as he pitched the sixth and seventh innings, giving up the homerun to Ramos.  He also allowed two runners inherited from Burke Badenhop to score. The Brewers starter, Donovan Hand gave up five runs on five innings pitched before yielding to Badenhop. 

Besides Ramos, who went 3-4 at the plate, Ian Desmond, Adam Laroche and Jayson Werth all had multi-hit games.  The Nationals need to find a way to consistently deliver this kind of performance at the plate to be able to catch the Atlanta Braves in the National League East.  Ian Desmond also stole two bases in this game giving him a team leading 10 stolen bases for the year.

This is the first time in over a month that the Nationals have had what they would consider their whole lineup back for a game, so hopefully with the return of Ramos this team can win more of the games they are supposed to.  It was apparent with today’s performance how much of a difference Ramos is at the plate over Kurt Suzuki. 

The Brewers have consistently fought their way back into games this series, this time coming back from a 5-2 deficit with homeruns from Yuniesky Betancourt and Carlos Gomez off Drew Storen in the seventh inning.   That brought the total runs given up by Storen to seven over the last two innings pitched, compounding the inconsistency from the Nationals bullpen that has plagued them all season.   Ramos came to Storen’s rescue in the bottom of the inning with his homerun to put the Nationals in the lead for good.

Bryce Harper continues to struggle since his return.  His first at bat back from injury was a homerun but Harper has gone 0-for-15 since then.  Opposing pitchers seem to be pitching Harper strictly away, using breaking balls and off speed pitches to keep Harper from pulling the ball.

The win today gave the Nationals a split of this four game series, and brought their season record to 43-42.  The Nationals improve to 38-10 when they score more than three runs.

Robert Peterson lives in the Washington DC Metro area and has been covering the Nationals since the team moved to the area in 2005.

Washington Nationals bats are quiet again, Lose 4-1 to Milwaukee Brewers

WP – K. Lohse (4-6) LP – R. Detwiler (2-7)

S – F. Rodriguez (7)

The Washington Nationals hitting malaise continues to haunt them this season, as they managed only five hits against the Milwaukee Brewers’ Kyle Lohse and Francisco Rodriguez in a disheartening effort all around.   This team prides itself on its ability to remain even keeled whether winning or losing, but that even keeled is beginning to come across as lack of passion, as several Nationals had effortless at bats.  This team doesn’t seem to have an answer to why it cant consistently hit the ball or advance runners, especially early in the game. 

Kyle Lohse pitched eight great innings, striking out seven as he helped the Brewers take a second game in this series.  There were a couple of outstanding fielding plays behind him especially Carlos Gomez robbing Bryce Harper of an extra base hit on his second at bat. 

Ross Detwiler provided six solid innings of work, giving up four runs but only two earned over that time.   The damage was done in the fifth inning, when Sean Halton and Logan Schafer both scored on a Norichika Aoki single that got by the drawn in infield.  In the sixth, the Brewers got two additional runs that scored after Bryce Harper made an error in left field on a line drive that he seemed to lose in the lights.  Logan Schafer tripled to drive in Aramis Ramirez and Jonathan Lucroy after the Harper error.

The four runs would be all Kyle Lohse needed as he baffled Nationals hitters all night other than a solo homerun given up to Anthony Rendon, who continues to hit with power consistently since his call up last month from the minors.  Rendon also had a chance to tie the game in the bottom of the ninth inning but came up just short on a drive to center field off Rodriguez.  He finished the game 1-for-4 and his season average now sits at .312 with 2 HR and 9 RBI. 

The biggest problem for the Nationals is that the top five batters in the lineup went a combined 1-for-19 in this game.  That’s a whopping .052 average for the night.  The Washington Nationals are going to have to do something to correct these hitting woes that consistently plague this team.  It might take Davey Johnson losing his calm cool demeanor with this team or making a drastic change to the lineup. It might even require changing the hitting coach at this point. 

I won’t claim to have the answer but if this trend continues much longer Johnson’s prophetic “World Series or Bust” will most likely be a bust.  This team now sits seven games behind the Atlanta Braves in the National League East, and six back in the wild-card standings, behind the St Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds. 

The Nationals are now 42-42, and fall to 5-32 in games where they score fewer than three runs.

Robert Peterson lives in the Washington DC Metro area and has been covering the Nationals since the team moved to the area in 2005.