Nationals Lose to Rays, Get Swept
The Nationals lost the second of two games to the Rays by a score of 1-0 in a real pitcher’s duel. The final score was 1-0. The winning pitcher was Nathan Eovaldi, who went 5 innings without a hit, before Bryce Harper got a double. The losing pitcher was Max Scherzer, who had a great outing, but only managed to strikeout 4, giving him his 4th loss of the season. This is the 11th loss in 15 games for the Nationals. Sergio Romo picked up the save, by striking out Michael Taylor with the bases loaded.
The lone run was scored on a fielder’s choice hit by Jake Bauers. He hit a grounder to Wilmer Difo, who threw the runner out at second, but Bauers ran fast enough and was safe. The lone run was scored by Kevin Kiermaier.
Romo struck out Taylor for the last out, and afterwards, started jawing something that initially looked to be directed at Michael. Something was said that wasn’t making the Nationals players happy, and as a result the benches cleared from both sides. The Nationals might want to hope that what was said to Taylor will be consequential for Romo. The benches cleared, and you could see a lot of tension coming from Adam Eaton and Daniel Murphy. It turns out that Romo was being cocky to the entire the Nationals dugout, which caused the benches to clear. Nationals fans should hope that Romo gets fined or suspended for these actions.
With this win, the Rays have swept the Nats, but have evened up the season series, with each team winning at home, both winning twice. The Nationals are now 41-36 overall, with a 22-16 road record.
In this series, they were shut out by the Rays both games. Eovaldi had 9 strikeouts today, and was able to shut down the Nationals.
