WASHINGTON — It was indeed a weird day in the D.C. area Tuesday. An earthquake struck Virginia which is just miles away from Washington D.C. and Nationals Park which resulted in many buildings in the area being evacuated. Thank god the ball game was a night game.
The other surprising event that took place Tuesday was a Diamondbacks’ victory against the Washington Nationals. However, the win was more impressive than what the final box score showed.
While the win finally ended the D-backs current six-game losing streak, Arizona still continues to struggle scoring runs score runs, winning by just a score of 2-0, with the difference in the game being a two-run home run in the seventh.
It is amazing too that Arizona still has a full two-game lead over San Francisco despite their previous skid. But the defending champs have several injuries to their name and were never that great of a run producing team this season.
Ian Kennedy was able to bounce back from his loss against the Philadelphia Phillies that was the starting point of the D-backs losing streak. Kennedy has now won eight of his last nine to improve to 16-4, which is tied for first among active National League starters with the other leader being another NL West starter, Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers.
Kennedy was able to pitch himself out of a jam in the fifth that could have seen vital damage to a team that cannot score at the moment. The Nats had the bases loaded with just one out and the powerful Ryan Zimmerman at the plate, making manager Kirk Gibson and D-back fans everywhere wonder when this losing streak would end.
But, Kennedy got Zimmerman to strikeout and also got cleanup hitter Michael Morse to strikeout as well.
In the top of the seventh, Chris Young worked his way to a one-out walk. Sean Burroughs was due up and wasted no time at the plate like his counterpart at first, smacking the first pitch from Nationals starter, Jordan Zimmermann, out of the park for a 2-0 lead. It was Burroughs first home run since April 30, 2005; Burroughs since then has spent much of his time in the D-backs minor league organization.
Arizona closer, J. J. Putz, had a clean and easy ninth. He struck out Laynce Nix and retired the other two batters en-route to his 31-save allowing Arizona to maintain their two-game lead over the Giants’.
Realistically, it may be too much to be so hard on the Diamondbacks’ offense in late August because they are still leading the division. And typically, the winner of most championships in any sport is the team that gets hot at the end of the season and can take that momentum with them into the postseason (cough cough… UConn Huskies). This very well could be the skid Arizona goes on before getting hot in September and playing that same baseball in October to knock off the Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers for a possible spot and 10-year anniversary in the World Series.
