September 14 – Luis Garcia Jr. homered, Dylan Crew stole two bases and scored, and the host Washington Nationals won 4–1 over the Miami Marlins on Friday night to even the four-game series.
Rookie left-hander DJ Hurts (4-7) got the win after allowing one run on four hits in five innings, walking one and striking out five. Kyle Finnegan pitched a scoreless ninth to get his 37th save.
The Nationals (66-81) stole five bases in the game and are 17-0 with at least four bases stolen this season.
Otto Lopez homered and Xavier Edwards and Javier Sanosa had two hits each for Miami (55-93), giving Miami its fourth win in the last five games.
Edward Cabrera (4-7) took the loss, giving up two unearned runs on just one hit in six innings. He had one walk and nine strikeouts but also committed two of the Marlins’ three errors.
Washington took a 2–0 lead in the first inning without getting a ball out of the infield.
Cruz, who stopped Connor Norby’s extra-base hit with a spectacular leap over the right field wall in the top of the inning, beat the shortstop with a grounder to start the inning and then stole second and third. After Jose Tena got two outs and stole second, Cabrera called on Garcia to hit a grounder to first and looked like he was going to get out of trouble. However, while playing first defense, Cabrera dropped Jake Berger’s pitch near the pocket, committing an error that allowed both Cruz and Turner to score.
In the fourth, López hit his fifth home run into the bullpen in left-center, increasing Miami’s lead to 2–1.
The Nationals scored two runs in the seventh inning off reliever Anthony Veneziano, making it 4-1. Garcia hit a 415-foot home run to right field, his 16th of the season and his first since Aug. 21. With one out, Drew Milus caught Edwards’s error at shortstop, stole second and scored on Jacob Young’s single.
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