The Washington Nationals defeated the Miami Marlins 2-0 in their Opening Day game as they received a dominant performance from their ace, Stephen Strasburg, and got timely hitting from their young phenom, Bryce Harper.
Harper brought out the lumber smacking two home runs in the game. His first jack came on the first pitch he saw in the first inning off Marlins' starting pitcher, Ricky Nolasco. Harper stepped up to the plate again in the fourth and after battling, sent a 3-2 slider over the right-field fence for his second shot of the game. He's the youngest player to hit two homers on Opening Day.
Strasburg was lights out though he only picked up three strikeouts, but he was ahead of players consistently, giving them nothing good to hit. It seemed like he was in trouble early on, but he as Juan Pierre led the game with a single. Starsburg cooled down and finished with a number line that looked like this: 7 IP, 3 H, 0ER, 3 SO.
His opposition, Nolasco, pitched decent baseball, surrendering only those two runs in the game. His Opening Day stats looked like this: 6 IP, 3H, 2ER, 2BB, 6 SO. Had he received run support or not allowed those two home runs to Harper, then maybe, Nolasco would have gone a little longer.
It was truly a pitchers duel as both bullpens then came in to shutdown each other's offense. Rafael Soriano came in to pitch the ninth and recorded the save, his first as a National. It's early on, so the fact that the Nationals only scored two runs off the Marlins should be of no concern.
Both teams meet up on Wednesday for a night cap. It will be Kevin Slowey vs. Gio Gonzalez.
