In stunning fashion, the Washington Nationals came from behind to beat the New York Yankees 8-6 on a two-run walk-off homer by first baseman Ryan Zimmerman in the 10th inning.
Zimmerman hit his shot off of Yankees closer Andrew Miller, who had not allowed a run all season.
The win lifted the hard-charging Nationals to a first-place tie in the NL East with the New York Mets, who had held the top spot all alone since April 16.
After being 7-13 and eight games behind the Mets on April 27, outfielder Bryce Harper, told reporters at the time that regardless of the slow start, the Nationals would rally back and win the NL East because they are the class of National League.
He then went onto to capture two consecutive NL Player of the Week awards as the Nationals began their surge.
Harper homered in the game Tuesday, giving him a league leading 15 for the season, while also leading the Majors in RBIs, slugging percentage, on-base percentage, runs and walks.
According to Ken Rosenthal, the Nationals are also set to promote their top infield prospect Wilmer Difo, who was batting .308/.339/.500 in 14 games at Double-A. He had a breakthrough season in 2014, slashing at 315/.360/.470 with 31 doubles, 14 home runs and 49 stolen bases in 136 games for Low-A Hagerstown.
As for the Mets, Sandy Alderson told reporters before Tuesday’s game that despite the team ranking at or near the bottom of the Majors in batting, runs scored, slugging and on-base, he is not exploring any trades to upgrade the offense.
Alderson said that the team doesn’t plan to do anything externally until both David Wright and Travis d’Arnaud return in 10-14 days and he can see how the offense performs with their bats back in the lineup.
“Right now, we’re not looking outside,” he said. “We’re looking inside to get some of our players back and we’ll see where we are at that point.”
It’s important to note that everyone expected the Nationals to run away with the division anyway, and that the Mets would compete for a wild card spot. That hasn’t really changed so there’s no need to hit the panic button yet. Although I’m sure most of my colleagues will do just that.
