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The Good: Jayson Werth. The veteran left fielder continues his hot streak, extending his on-base streak to 40 games with a 2-for-3 day with a walk, homer, three RBIs and three runs scored. Anthony Rendon added a pair of hits and a huge two-run double in the fifth, and Brian Goodwin singled in the eighth for his first Major League base hit.
The Bad: Oliver Perez. In the grand scheme of things, allowing an infield hit in a scoreless inning isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it speaks to Ollie’s lingering problems of not getting the job done in crucial situations -- and Dusty’s insistence in using him in high-leverage opportunities. The fact it came against a lefty makes it that much worse.
The Ugly: Gio Gonzalez. Gio has been good of late but on Wednesday it was back to shaky Gio. Twice he gave up leads, the second of which was a three-run advantage, and tried in the sixth before Matt Belisle (of all people) got him off the hook. Eight baserunners in five innings isn’t exactly bueno, but the silver lining — if you can call it that — is that only one came via base on balls.
Moments that mattered: Anthony Rendon’s two-run double in the fifth. After Daniel Murphy put the Nats back up by one (after earlier coughing up a 4-1 lead) with a booming RBI double, Rendon came to the plate against ground-ball specialist Dan Otero with one out and runners at second and third and the infield drawn in.
Otero quickly got ahead of Rendon 0-2, but got too much of the plate with a 90 mph sinker. Rendon laced the offering just inside the third base bag and down the left-field line to plate both runners and give the Nats a three-run cushion.
Matt Belisle’s Houdini act. After Gio allowed the first two to reach in the sixth, Dusty had seen enough in his mediocre outing and summoned Belisle. The veteran righty got a 6-4-3 twin killing, then another groundout to escape the threat unscathed.