Nats Left Longing For More
Team Outslugged Again In Loss to the Marlins: Marlins 5, Nationals 3

By Amy Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 16, 2007

MIAMI, July 15 -- When the Washington Nationals packed their bags, slid into their suit jackets, boarded the team bus and made their way out of Dolphin Stadium for their return trip to Washington on Sunday night, they had finally accomplished something they hadn't been able to do all afternoon against the Florida Marlins:

Leave the ballpark.

The Nationals hit just one ball deep all day during their 5-3 defeat, and that was caught on the warning track in center field. Florida, meantime, repeatedly and forcibly changed the tenor of this three-game series with one swing of the bat, hitting a trio of home runs in each of the three games this weekend, the last two of which were losses for the Nationals.

"They say speed kills," Nationals Manager Manny Acta said. "I think power kills. Those guys out-hit us nine to zero. It was taking us two or three hits to score runs, and they just came up and, 'Whack.' "

To the delight of the sun-baked and humidity-soaked crowd of 12,119, star slugger Miguel Cabrera hit two home runs Sunday and Josh Willingham added another. Both players hit three in the series, and contributed to a quick-strike offense that essentially disabled Washington: The Marlins scored 15 runs on the nine home runs, including all of their runs in Saturday's 5-2 victory.

Washington, meantime, tried to keep pace by stacking up singles, doubles, walks and sacrifice flies. A small-ball windfall helped them to a 14-10 victory Friday, but the good fortune did not last. On Saturday, the Nationals struggled to hit the ball out of the infield, let alone out of the park, against sinkerball sensation Sergio Mitre.

On Sunday, the Nationals fared much better against left-handed starter Scott Olsen, who gave up six hits and five walks in five innings. But it's one thing to put men in scoring position. It's quite another to bring them home. From the first inning, when Washington opened the game with consecutive walks but could not score, frustration proved the afternoon's theme.

The Nationals had stranded 10 men by the end of the day.

"We had a chance all day to score runs and really open the game up," right fielder Austin Kearns said. "We just couldn't get over the hump and open it up."

Kearns provided Washington with its only jump-off-the-bench-and-follow-the-long-fly-ball moment Sunday, and the result was hugely deflating. Not only did his third-inning smash get run down by center fielder Alfredo Amezaga on the warning track in the deepest part of the park, but it also shut down the inning with two men on base.

Instead of a three-run home run -- and a 4-1 lead -- Washington went back out to the field with the tie score intact.

"I didn't think it was going to be caught," Kearns said. "I hit it pretty good. . . . You can't print [what I said]. It was a tough break."

There were others. Olsen rescued himself time and again. A double play ball off the bat of Dmitri Young helped clean up the mess he made in the first inning. Strikeouts of Ryan Zimmerman and Young helped defuse a major scoring opportunity in the fifth, when the Nationals led off the inning with a double by Nook Logan and a single by Ronnie Belliard.

Logan ended up scoring on a single by Felipe Lopez, but Belliard was thrown out at the plate for the third out.

Acta later shrugged off the questionable decision to send Belliard, who was so far out on the throw from center field he didn't even bother to slide.

"You got to take a chance," he said. "We're not scoring that many runs."

All of Florida's home runs came off Washington starting pitchers. On Sunday, it was Jason Simontacchi's turn to rue the regrettable offerings he left over the plate. The most dismaying were those to Cabrera, who has hit 21 home runs this season and was the Marlins' lone representative in the All-Star Game. If there was one guy Simontacchi did not want to mess around with, it was Cabrera.

"Twice he just crushed it today," Simontacchi said. "Yeah, I missed zones, no doubt about it. A good hitter hits it out, [but] why couldn't he hit a single? It's frustrating."

The damage actually could have been much worse. Cabrera's home runs came leading off the third and fifth innings, so they were solo shots. And both followed inning-ending strikeouts by Marlins second baseman Dan Uggla, who left four men on base -- runs Cabrera would have had a chance to bring home if Uggla hadn't flailed twice.

Acta pulled Simontacchi with one out in the fifth after he allowed Cabrera's second home run, then a pair of singles and a walk. That left him responsible for all five of Florida's runs and handed him his seventh loss of the season. His ERA swelled to 6.37.

Lefty Ray King induced a groundout to get out of that inning, and four relievers combined to pitch 3 2/3 scoreless innings, but the impressive bullpen performance meant nothing under the circumstances.

"It's part of the game," Belliard said. "We've got to forget this today and come back [Monday] and beat somebody."