WASHINGTON -- If, as trade rumors would have it, Alfonso Soriano and Livan
Hernandez are on their way out of town, they're still helping Washington win for
now, and the pair led the Nationals to a 7-3 victory over the Cubs on Saturday.
With other clubs' scouts in town ahead of the July 31 trading deadline, Soriano
hit three doubles and a triple, drove in one run and scored two, while Hernandez
(7-8) threw six solid innings for his first win in nearly a month.
Soriano is hitting .467 (14-for-30) since the All-Star break.
The Nationals got key contributions from up and down the roster in earning their
first two-game winning streak since taking four in a row against Tampa Bay and
Florida from July 1-4.
Rookie Ryan Zimmerman delivered the go-ahead hit, a two-run double in the fifth
off reliever Scott Williamson (2-3) to put Washington up 4-3. Pinch-hitter Alex
Escobar added a two-run homer off Will Ohman in the sixth, rounding the bases
with a hitch in his step after hurting his right hamstring Friday. And Austin
Kearns hit his first homer for Washington since arriving from Cincinnati on July
13 in an eight-player trade.
Even Washington's pitching, its weakest link lately, performed well. Hernandez
earned the first win for a Nationals starter since July 3: The 13-game drought
was the franchise's longest since the Expos went 14 games without a win from a
starter in August 2000.
Three relievers combined for three shutout innings in front of a crowd of
38,021, Washington's fifth-largest of the season.
With the game-time temperature 92 degrees, Hernandez threw 106 pitches, giving
up seven hits and three runs. The big blows were solo shots by Aramis Ramirez in
the first and fifth innings, giving the third baseman two consecutive two-homer
games.
He has five homers in his last three games and 21 this season, the fourth year
in a row he's topped 20.
In his first at-bat, Ramirez connected on a 62 mph offering that didn't fool him
one bit. The Nationals have allowed at least one homer in the first or second
inning of each of their past five games, and there was more trouble for
Hernandez.
He walked John Mabry, then served up a double to Jacque Jones and an RBI single
to Phil Nevin, making it 2-0. Jones tried to score on that hit, too, but center
fielder Luis Matos -- making his first start for Washington since signing as a
free agent July 14 -- threw him out at the plate to end the inning.
Hernandez settled down, retiring eight of the next nine batters. But in the
fifth, with the score 2-2, Ramirez drove a 77 mph pitch over the wall to put
Chicago ahead.
Then, for the second game in a row, a Cubs pitcher left injured, and the
Nationals capitalized.
On Friday, Scott Eyre departed with a tight hamstring after facing one batter in
the eighth, and Bob Howry gave up three runs as Washington turned a 6-4 deficit
into a 7-6 victory, capped by a two-run hit from Escobar, who was injured
running to first.
This time, Cubs starter Sean Marshall allowed two runs on six hits through four
innings, but exited with a strained left side muscle after one pitch in the
fifth. Williamson got two quick outs, before Soriano doubled. After Felipe Lopez
walked, Zimmerman's double put Washington ahead.
That must have been a relief to Zimmerman, who hit into two odd double plays
earlier: a 1-4-2 in the first and a 9-2 in the third, with Soriano out at the
plate both times. Nationals baserunners were thrown out in each of the first
four innings.
Notes: For Ramirez, Friday and Saturday represent the first time he's had
consecutive multihomer games; he has three this season and 13 in his career. ...
The Nationals optioned RHP Kevin Gryboski to Triple-A New Orleans and recalled
OF Ryan Church, who entered in the seventh as a pinch-runner and stayed in to
play center.
