Nats Subdue The Freak

Tim Lincecum goes 4 2/3 innings, giving up 6 earned runs and 5 walks. It was an unpleasant display. The real problems started for Lincecum in the 5th.

Adam Kennedy stole his way around the bases after being walked in the 5th. Lincecum never looked to hold guys on base. Zimmerman stole a base as well after being walked.

Ian Desmond put the icing on the cake to The Freak's outing with 2 outs in the 5th. To take a term from Todd Wellenmeyer last night, Desmond had a "duck fart" single to right field that scored Zimm and Hammer, putting the Nats up 6-0. Lincecum got yanked here, and then Denny Bautista got them out of the jam after he threw a wild pitch that let Desmond get to 2nd.

Eventually the Nats added another run, and the Giants got 3, give the Nats a 7-3 victory and putting them at 24-23 on the year.

It was the kind of breakdown that you don't expect to see from the reigning 2 time NL Cy Young Award winner who is now 5-1 on the year. The likelihood of the Nats losing to a 5+ ERA guy like Wellenmeyer and losing to a less than 3 ERA guy like Lincecum were against the, but again, the team figured it out. This sort of success against a Cy Young winner may have been exactly what the Nats needed to get their stagnating offense a boost. In the 11 games prior to last night, the Nats had scored more than 5 runs only twice, one of them was in a 10-7 loss against the Mets.

On the other side, Atilano looked great until the 6th inning, where he looked like he almost gave up a bit. But never fear, Doug Slaten got them out of the inning. Storen gave up another run in his one inning appearance on a walk and a hit, but the run was not earned on an Ian Desmond error. Tyler Clippard had a great 2 inning outing to close the game where he gave up 1 hit and struck out two. He threw 19 pitches in 2 innings, and 14 of them were strikes.

The Nats looked great against a San Fran offense that has struggled all year. The Nats will try for the same results this afternoon at 3:45 in the east before they head down the coast to San Diego for a 3 game series against the NL West leading Padres.