South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Anderson homers as Marlins top Nats again
Brian Anderson homered, and the Miami Marlins beat Washington 6-3 on Friday night for their ninth win in 10 games against the Nationals this season.
Miami, fourth in the NL East, is
26-39 against teams other the lastplace Nationals.
Jon Berti stole two bases to increase his major-league leading total to 24.
Keibert Ruiz homered for Washington, which fell to 6-25 against the NL East and 29-50 overall. It lost its 50th game by the earliest date since the 2009 Nats were
22-50 after games of June 26. Trevor Rogers (4-6) allowed one run and two hits in five innings. Rogers is 3-0 with a 2.25 ERA in three starts against the Nationals this season and 1-6 with a 6.58 ERA in 12 outings against other teams.
“I was getting ground balls right at guys,” Rogers said. “Even when they made solid contact, they were right at guys.”
Tanner Scott worked a perfect ninth for his eighth save in nine chances.
Washington starter Josiah Gray (6-5) retired Miami’s first six hitters before yielding Anderson’s solo shot to lead off the third. The Marlins pushed across two more runs with two outs in the inning when Joey Wendle hit an RBI single and scored on Garrett Cooper’s double.
Anderson’s homer was his first since May 14. He returned from the injured list Monday after missing
28 games with a lower back injury. “After getting to see the other guys do it, I was starting to get a little jealous,” Anderson said of wearing the Marlins’ celebratory home run helmet. “That was a cool way to get us going today and I’m looking forward to wearing it a couple more times.”
Berti added a sacrifice fly in the fifth to make it 4-1, and Miami tacked on Anderson’s run-scoring single and Berti’s RBI fielder’s choice in the sixth against Gray, who allowed six runs and 10 hits in 5 ⅔ innings.
“Nine batters he was ahead, he punched out six,” manager Dave Martinez said. “Seven batters he fell behind, five guys got on base. When he works ahead, he’s really good and we’ve seen that in the past. We have to get him to continue to work ahead and throw strikes.”