The Washington Nationals played their second home game of the year Thursday night before about half as many fans as saw them lose their home opener two days earlier.
Since then, they had sent their starting center fielder/leadoff hitter to the minors, seen the Florida Marlins drive off even further into the NL East horizon and sat idly as rain washed out their chance at their first win Wednesday.
But when victory No. 1 finally came, it couldn’t have been a much clearer picture of what the Nationals are capable of on those nights when everything’s going right.
Their revamped lineup, altered further with Lastings Milledge at Class AAA Syracuse, handed Shairon Martis an early lead. The young right-hander subdued a fire-breathing lineup. The Nationals’ bullpen hummed through the last three innings, and the offense scored enough extra runs to turn the game into a snoozer.
It all added up to an 8-2 win against Philadelphia, ending a nightmarish seven-game losing streak to start the year with an emphatic victory against the defending World Series champions and sending Washington into a weekend series with a little juice.
There’s little else Martis could have done to stop the losing streak. He gave up five hits and two runs in 6 1/3 innings by doing exactly what manager Manny Acta and pitching coach Randy St. Claire have implored him to do: throw strikes without running up his pitch count out of fear he won’t be able to challenge hitters.
He went right after the Phillies’ lineup, walking Chase Utley but getting through the menacing top of the order without another problem. Martis established his change-up as a viable out pitch early, later adding his slider as another complement to his fastball. Although only 49 of his 86 pitches were strikes, he didn’t throw more than six pitches to a single hitter.
Offensively, there was just enough clicking for the Nationals, too. Hitting in the No. 2 hole for the first time, Nick Johnson singled in the bottom of the first, and he was followed by a single from Ryan Zimmerman. Then Joe Blanton’s high fastball to Adam Dunn promptly landed in the second deck over the Nationals’ bullpen.
Leading 3-0 after the first, the Nationals never found much trouble. Martis allowed single runs in the fourth and fifth but finished his start with the lead, handing the ball to Mike Hinckley in the seventh and ensuring the Nationals’ first quality start of the year. Hinckley retired Jimmy Rollins to end the seventh and was lifted for pinch hitter Josh Willingham with the score 3-2.
Willingham battled Chad Durbin to a full count, then dropped a home run just beyond a leaping Raul Ibanez in the Phillies’ bullpen. The homer was the kind of insurance run the Nationals haven’t gotten yet this year — or, for that matter, much of last year.
Victories just don’t come that easy to the Nationals. But with the solo blast from one of their newly acquired veterans, they were finally able to give a lead to another new acquisition: setup man Joe Beimel, who seemed nothing more than a frivolous luxury the first week of the season.
In the eighth, though, he delivered exactly what the Nationals are giving him $2 million to do. He set down Shane Victorino, Utley and Ryan Howard without a hint of a problem, retiring Howard for the fifth time in five lifetime appearances with a flyout to center that ended the inning.
Another insurance homer dropped into the Phillies’ bullpen in the bottom of the eighth, this one from Elijah Dukes. Alberto Gonzalez tucked another homer just inside the left-field foul pole three batters later. Anderson Hernandez and Ryan Zimmerman added RBI singles, and Joel Hanrahan didn’t even have a save opportunity when he worked a perfect ninth, retiring Pedro Feliz on a flyout to right as Nationals Park at last exulted with fireworks.
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