Washington, DC – Nick Markakis and Yamaico Navarro each had two hits and drove in two runs while Jason Hammel outdueled Gio Gonzalez, as the Baltimore Orioles defeated the Washington Nationals, 6-2, in the opener of a two-game interleague set at Nationals Park.
Chris Davis and Matt Wieters also had a pair of hits, with Wieters and Adam Jones each adding an RBI for Baltimore, which has won five of seven.
Hammel (7-2) cruised over eight innings, allowing both Washington runs on eight hits while striking out eight in the victory. The right-hander has won five consecutive starts versus Washington and is 6-0 over eight career matchups.
Ryan Zimmerman and Tyler Moore drove in the lone Nationals' runs. Gonzalez (3-3), who entered the game 1-0 with a 1.67 ERA in four starts in May, allowed four runs on eight hits over 5 2/3 innings.
"He just didn't go after them when he needed to," Nationals manager Davey Johnson said of Gonzalez. "He left a lot of pitches up."
The Nationals have dropped two of three.
Washington opened up the scoring in the second inning. Adam LaRoche singled to start the frame, then stole second in between an Ian Desmond strikeout, before Moore smacked a double down the left-field line to make it 1-0.
Baltimore fought back in the fourth, plating three runs to take a 3-1 lead.
Davis walked and Wieters singled before Steve Pearce flew out to right, moving Davis to third. Navarro followed with an RBI single to left. Hammel helped his own cause with a sacrifice bunt, moving runners to second and third with two down. Markakis brought both runners home with a slicing run-scoring single in the left-field gap.
"I got my pitch, didn't miss it, and found grass in the outfield," Markakis said of his base hit. "It ended up being big and we got a lot of big hits out of a lot of guys. It was a team effort and a great team win."
Gonzalez again ran into trouble in the fifth, as Jones led off with double. Davis moved Jones to third with a bloop single and Wieters gave the Orioles a 5-1 lead with a sacrifice fly to right.
Denard Span helped cut the hosts' deficit in half in the sixth. He hit a leadoff triple in the right-center gap, and two batters later, Zimmerman's RBI single brought him home and made it 4-2.
Navarro and Jones each supplied RBI singles in the seventh and eighth innings, respectively, to increase the visitors' margin to 6-2.
Game Notes
The Orioles set a new franchise record, scoring at least five runs in each of their last 10 road games, breaking a streak of nine straight five-run road games from July 19-August 8, 1998 ... The Nationals placed pitcher Ross Detwiler on the 15-day disabled list with a right back muscle strain on Monday and recalled fellow left-hander Xavier Cedeno from Triple-A Syracuse. Prior to the game, the team also announced outfielder Bryce Harper is expected to miss two games to rest a sore knee ... The series shifts to Baltimore for the final two games on Wednesday.
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