With a lineup that looked weak and an huge early deficit, the Nats battled the Braves all night and tried their best to overcome Bergmann’s poor start.  Early on, the offense couldn’t get much going off of Jurrjens.  Zimmerman kept his hitting streak alive though and Casto had a great 3 for 5 night. Early in the game, Bernadina tripled to bring home Zimmerman for the Nats first run. 

Once we got into the Braves bullpen, the game took on a new look.  An RBI hit by Aaron Boone would add another run.  The Nats mounted a rally in the 7th off of Braves reliever Dessens.  Langerhans, Bernadina and Nieves helped to close the gap to 10-5.  My hopes rose when Jorge Julio took the mound in the 9th but we couldn’t do much even off of Julio. 

Despite the good effort and come-back spirit, nothing could come close to overcoming Jason Bergmann’s outing.  In his 2 and 1/3 innings, he gave up 7 runs on 5 hits and 3 walks.  He left visibly upset while his ERA ballooned to 5.23.  It’s been a shaky year for Jason.  Don mentioned that once Bergman gets off his game, his collapse is imminent.  It takes too long for him to regroup and before you know it, he’s leaving with a huge run deficit.  In 23 starts, he’s 2-11.  Eleven times he’s given up more than 4 runs.  This start was the 10th time he didn’t make it into the 6th inning.  It just hasn’t been a great year for him.

Estrada didn’t fair too much better.  He allowed all of Bergmann’s runners to score, walked in a run and gave up 3 of his own in 2.2 innings.  The rest of the bullpen did just fine.

Tomorrow, Tim Redding (10-8, 4.55) takes on Mike Hampton (2-2, 5.67)

In the NL East Showdown in NY, Brett Myers picked up the 3-0 shutout win of the Mets bringing the Phillies to two games behind.  Church went 0 for 4 with 2 strike outs and he stranded three runners.   Schneider had a costly throwing error in an attempt to catch Victorino stealing which quickly became a run.  He went 0 for 2 with a walk.  They meet again tomorrow in the Fox Game of the Week at 4pm.

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