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Dan Haren and Brandon McCarthy both were on top of their game in the early going, and neither side scored through five innings. McCarthy retired the first 11 batters faced, before Jayson Werth singled with two outs in the fourth, but he was the first to crack, in the sixth inning. Denard Span tripled to right-field, and was able to come home when the next batter grounded out to Didi Gregorius at short. With one out in the seventh, Chad Tracy homered (above) - only his fourth of the season - and that was all the Nationals would need. McCarthy allowed two runs over seven innings, on five hits and a pair of walks: David Hernandez and Brad Ziegler put up zeroes in relief.
However, the D-backs were even less effective against Haren, who worked seven scoreless innings, holding the Diamondbacks to four hits and a walk. Paul Goldschmidt extended his hitting streak to 18 games with a single, while Chris Owings had a pair of hits, but Arizona had only four at-bats with runners in scoring position. Two of those came in the ninth, after we got the tying runs into scoring position with one out, but Matt Davidson struck out swinging and Owings flew out softly to left-center.
It's the season finale tomorrow afternoon, with Wade Miley taking on Gio Gonzalez, in the last game of the 2013 campaign. The D-backs need a win to match last season's 81 victories, and avoid their first losing record since 2010.