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The two hottest team in the National League face off in this series. Yeah, you'd have got long odds against being able to say that for much of the season, but both Washington and Arizona come into this set of games riding five-game winning streaks. The Nationals just polished off a three-game sweep of Florida, coming back from a six-run deficit in the final contest, to win 12-8. The trio of Ryan Zimmerman, Adam Dunn and Josh Willingham have all been insanely hot of late - in the past 28 days, they are all batting .320 or better, with OPS above 1.100. But it's not just them - the team as a whole has hit .310 in the past two weeks.
Arizona will, of course, seek to continue their own run of success, and have batted .315 over the previous seven days. While we may not have Justin Upton for a while, I'm hopeful we'll get Ryan Roberts back at some point this series, though I guess that depends on his wife and the arrival of their child - in the meantime, Reynolds will be our backup middle-infielder, should one be needed to replaced Drew or Ojeda. AJ Hinch will be trying to avoid that particular fate, I imagine.
Jon Garland was great last time out, throwing a complete game and extending his streak of quality starts to seven - since the start of July, his ERA is 2.81. Giving up only eight walks in those 48 innings has definitely helped his game. Ballester has been a bit less consistent, though each of his three starts has resulted in two earned runs - just in anywhere from three to six innings of work. No-one on the current AZ roster has ever faced him, which past experience tends to suggest is not a good thing for our hitters...
Line-up
- Stephen Drew SS
- Alex Romero RF
- Gerardo Parra CF
- Mark Reynolds 3B
- Chris Snyder C
- Trent Oeltjen LF
- Josh Whitesell 1B
- Augie Ojeda 2B
- Jon Garland P
No Young in the line-up, for a second straight day - hey, Hinch could hardly drop The Thunder from Down Under after such a striking debut, could he? Not going to be about for the majority of this one, but hopefully it won't run too long: 12-inning games + a recap + 2:50 Bollywood movie doesn't quite fit into my evening...