Washington Nationals' Manager Davey Johnson Trusts Gio Gonzalez Instead Of His Own Gut, Then BOOM!

• ... [Craig] Stammen threw 2.0 scoreless. Sean Burnett got through a 22-pitch eighth without allowing a run and the Nationals scored two in the top of the ninth to go ahead 8-4, ensuring [Gio] Gonzalez would earn his 11th win of 2012 after Tyler Clippard pitched a 12-pitch, 1-2-3 ninth.

"If we lost that one," Davey Johnson told reporters after the game, "[It] would have been all on me, because I went against my instincts," in letting him go out and leaving Gonzalez in too long in the sixth. "It's 120° out there. I mean, I was sweating more in this one than I was yesterday. It was really hot. He threw [98] pitches after five, and I said, 'Man, go hitter-by-hitter with him,' and then everybody was telling me how good he feeling, and I said, 'Well, he's South Florida maybe, I'll go with him,' you know and then, 'BOOM!' I was killing myself."

Davey Johnson was willing to take the blame if things had gone wrong.

Gonzalez, as usual, would take none of the credit for the win, pointing to the bullpen, the run support, the defense...

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Davey Johnson Trusts Gio Gonzalez Instead Of His Own Gut, Then BOOM! sbn.to/KWoAMU

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