Washington, DC (My Sportsbook) - Luis Castillo homered and drove in a pair of runs as the
Florida Marlins beat the
Washington Nationals, 4-2, to even a critical four-game set at RFK Stadium at one win apiece.
Castillo went 3-for-4, crossing the plate twice, as the Marlins stayed within a game of front-running Houston in the NL wild card race. The Nationals, meanwhile, dipped to 2 1/2 games back.
Miguel Cabrera and Juan Pierre each added two hits for Florida, which snapped a two-game skid.
Ismael Valdez (2-1) picked up the victory, going five innings and giving up two runs on three hits. Todd Jones earned his 35th save with a scoreless ninth and Brian Moehler contributed three clutch innings of one-hit middle relief.
Brad Wilkerson homered to highlight the offense for Washington, which saw a three-game winning streak come to an end.
Darrell Rasner (0-1) took the loss, surrendering three runs in just 2 2/3 frames in his major-league debut.
Florida took a three-run lead in the third inning. Damion Easley doubled to left, advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt by Valdez, and came home when Castillo lined a single to center.
Jeremy Hermida followed by ripping a double into the right-field corner to bring home Castillo, and later in the inning Juan Encarnacion drilled an RBI double to left.
The Nats got two runs back in the bottom of the frame. After Jason Bergmann led off with a walk, Wilkerson drove a home run to right.
The Marlins extended their lead in the fifth. Mike Stanton took over on the mound for Bergmann to start the inning, and Castillo greeted him with a homer to left-center to make it 4-2.
Vinny Castilla led off the bottom of the ninth with a single to left, bringing Brian Schneider to the plate as the tying run for Washington. But Jones struck out Schneider as well as Carlos Baerga, then got Ryan Zimmerman to fly out and end the game.
Game Notes
The Nationals went nine games without making an error before committing two tonight...No Washington batter produced more than one hit...The Nats used six pitchers in the contest.
