In a game with four home runs, it was a sacrifice bunt from Wilson Ramos that eventually lifted the Washington Nationals to a 5-4 victory over the visiting Chicago Cubs on Wednesday.
Ryan Zimmerman and Danny Espinosa belted two-run homers for the Nationals (45-43), who won their third straight to move two games over .500.
The teams traded two-run homers over the first six innings, with Espinosa giving Washington a lead with his 16th blast in the first and Carlos Pena evening the score with his 18th in the second.
Zimmerman put the Nationals back on top in the fifth only to have Aramis Ramirez match him in the sixth.
The Cubs went to Kerry Wood (1-4) in the seventh, and the flame-throwing righthander surrendered a leadoff double to Mike Morse, who moved to third on a line out.
New Nationals manager Davey Johnson put the squeeze play on twice in a row and it worked the second time. Ramos - who missed the sign the first time - dropped it right in front of the mound as Morse scored easily.
Rookie Ryan Mattheus (2-0) secured the win with a scoreless inning of relief and Drew Storen worked a perfect ninth for his 22nd save of the season.
Chi. Cubs | Washington | |
Randy Wells | Player | Tom Gorzelanny |
No Decision | W/L | No Decision |
4.0 | IP | 6.0 |
5 | Strikeouts | 6 |
10 | Hits | 7 |
9.00 | ERA | 6.00 |
Chi. Cubs | Washington | |
Reed Johnson | Player | Ryan Zimmerman |
2 | Hits | 3 |
0 | RBI | 2 |
0 | HR | 1 |
2 | TB | 8 |
.500 | Avg | .750 |
Team | Hits | HR | TB | Avg | LOB | K | RBI | BB | SB | Errors |
Chi. Cubs | 8 | 2 | 15 | .250 | 8 | 10 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Washington | 13 | 2 | 22 | .371 | 22 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 |