Mike Morse and Cristian Guzman hit solo home runs in support of a strong showing by Livan Hernandez as the Washington Nationals earned a 2-1 victory over the Kansas City Royals on Monday night.
Nyjer Morgan and Roger Bernidina had the only other hits for Washington, which snapped a season-long six-game losing streak
Hernandez (6-4) didn’t need much support as he rebounded from his worst outing of the season to shutdown the Royals. The 35-year-old right-hander allowed one run on eight hits in seven innings. He struck out five and walked one.
Hernandez’s lone blemish was a third-inning groundout by Jason Kendall that evened the score at 1-1.
Things stayed even until the sixth when Guzman supplied what would stand as the game-winner with his first blast of the campaign.
Morse had gotten the scoring started with his homer to left in the second inning.
Kansas City starter Bruce Chen (3-2) took the loss in allowing two runs on three hits with four walks over six frames.
The Royals banged out 11 hits but went 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position in dropping their fourth in a row.
Kansas City | Washington | |
Bruce Chen | Player | Livan Hernandez |
Loss | W/L | Win |
6.0 | IP | 7.0 |
3 | Strikeouts | 5 |
3 | Hits | 8 |
3.00 | ERA | 1.29 |
Kansas City | Washington | |
Scott Podsednik | Player | Roger Bernadina |
4 | Hits | 1 |
0 | RBI | 0 |
0 | HR | 0 |
5 | TB | 1 |
1.000 | Avg | 1.000 |
Team | Hits | HR | TB | Avg | LOB | K | RBI | BB | SB | Errors |
Kansas City | 11 | 0 | 13 | .333 | 17 | 9 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Washington | 4 | 2 | 10 | .160 | 12 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 |