Ryan Zimmerman sat out of the series finale in Coors Field, but the 32-year-old first baseman talked about Washington’s success on the ten-game road trip after he put together a 3 for 5 night in the Nationals’ 11-4 win over the Colorado Rockies in the third game of four.
In nine games and eight starts on the trip, Zimmerman was 15 for 33 (.455/.514/1.000) with three doubles, five home runs and 15 runs driven in.
The Nationals, after taking two of the first three with the Rockies, were 8-1 heading into the series finale in Denver.
“We knew this was going to be a really tough trip,” Zimmerman told MASN’s Dan Kolko on Thursday, “with the late start times, and I think we kind of got together collectively as a group and said, ‘You know what, we can’t do anything about it, we might as well grind through it and push through it, and we kind of think the road trip doesn’t end until after those three games when we get home because that’s going to be just as tough as being on this trip.
“So we still have four games left kind of on the road trip,” Zimmerman said, “but nothing we could do about it, so we so just decided to come out and try and do as good as we can.”
The Nationals took the series finale with the Rockies as well, outscoring the home team 16-5.
Over the final three games of the series in Coors Field, the Nationals collected 47 hits and scored 42 runs.
“You know you’re going to score a lot of runs here,” Dusty Baker told reporters after the final game of the series, “but I didn’t have any idea we were going to score that many runs.”
“It was a very good road trip and now we’ve got to go home — we’ve got three more days against the tough Mets and continue this back at home before we have an off day.”
Baker was asked what goal he had in mind when they first left for Atlanta.
“I really didn’t have a target,” he said. “Every road trip I always think about having the perfect road trip, you’re thinking about 10-0, and I say that to myself all the time and I don’t know if we’ve ever had one, but that’s what you yearn for, and basically, you just want to win series and especially on the road, they say if you’re .500 or better you’re playing pretty good on the road.
“I’m just glad the guys came out ready to play, especially today, because today is a tough day,” Baker continued.
“Getaway day, been on the road ten days, you’re thinking about home and your kids. Now we can think about it on the way home versus before the game.”
More importantly, the Nationals came out of the series in Coors Field swinging it well, with a well-rested bullpen, and Baker was able to rest a number of his regulars with little drop-off in production.
“It’s a lot of fun when you can give guys days off and plug in other guys and they have good days and then the guys that were playing regularly had good days too,” Baker said.
As for the bullpen making it out of Colorado relatively unscathed?
“You’re always worried about that,” Baker said. “You’re always worried about after you leave here.
“Our bullpen is in pretty good shape, we’ve got Max [Scherzer] tomorrow, which hopefully we don’t use our bullpen much and then I think we’ve got [Stephen] Strasburg after that.”
Will the Nationals keep the momentum going in the nation’s capital? They’ll try to win their fourth straight over the Mets and 10th in the last 11 overall in the series opener in D.C. tonight at 7:05 PM EDT.