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Stephen Strasburg held the Philadelphia Phillies to two runs in seven innings of work in the series opener, then the Washington Nationals turned to the bullpen, with scoreless innings from Koda Glover, Blake Treinen and Shawn Kelley giving the Nationals multiple opportunities to win it, which they eventually did on Daniel Murphy’s walk-off double in the tenth.
Matt Wieters hit an RBI single in the bottom of the second, responding to the solo home run Tommy Joseph hit in the Phillies’ half of the inning.
Cesar Hernandez put the visitors back on top with an two-out single to center in the fifth, but Anthony Rendon doubled to right in the seventh to drive Chris Heisey in and tie it up.
With the score 2-2 in extras, Kelley retired the Phillies in order, striking out two and the Nationals got to Phillies’ righty Jeanmar Gomez in the bottom of the inning, striking a quick blow with Bryce Harper singling and scoring from first on Murphy’s opposite field double.
“Any time Bryce is leading off and then you have Murph and the heart of the order right there, that’s what it does,” Dusty Baker told reporters when asked about the bullpen’s work to give Harper and Murphy the opportunity.
“And you have to score one versus two — one or more to tie it, and that’s the key. And the crowd was into it, it was a big crowd tonight, and I think that really helped us too, being at home and they went home satisfied and so did we.”
#Nats' skipper Dusty Baker on Daniel Murphy's walk-off double against the Phillies on Friday night in #Nationals Park: pic.twitter.com/POmBtbuWcB
— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) April 15, 2017
A solid start, scoreless innings from the pen, and then eventually a big hit in front of a sold out crowd of 38,664.
“I think our bullpen threw great today,” Harper said after the win.
“Shawn Kelley came in and did his job, Treinen as well, Koda, everybody came in and did their job. Strasburg threw a great game today, pitching duel right there against [Aaron] Nola.”
Will the Nationals follow up on that team effort in the second of three with the Phillies in D.C.?
Here’s the Nationals’ lineup for this afternoon’s game:
#Nats vs. #Phillies 2 of 3 in D.C.: Difo SS, Rendon 3B, Harper RF, Murphy 2B, Zimmerman 1B, Heisey LF, Taylor CF, Lobaton C, Roark P
— federalbaseball (@federalbaseball) April 15, 2017