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Phillies bullpen can’t back Eickhoff’s 6 scoreless
- Updated: September 11, 2016
WASHINGTON — Call Bryce Harper, “the Natural,” at least for Saturday night anyway. His three-run homer in the eighth inning proved to be the difference as the Nationals blanked the Phillies, 3-0, at Nationals Park.
With the victory and the Mets’ extra-innings loss to the Braves, the Nationals’ magic number dwindled to 12 to win the National League East.
The Nationals put runners on first and second with one out in the eighth to set the plate for the reigning NL Most Valuable Player. Harper got ahead in the count and smashed the 3-1 offering from Phillies left-hander Patrick Schuster into the second deck at Nationals Park.
“I got pretty good wood on it. I felt good. I knew it was out of the yard,” Harper said. “I showed a lot of emotions there. I was pretty fired up to get that W. Down the stretch you want to win as many games as you can and get this into the postseason, hopefully. We have to lock this thing up.”
The homer snapped a 10-game homerless drought for Harper, during which he was hitting .211/.279/.289.
“Boy, that was a traumatic home run. That show you how strong he is mentally. After you strike out three times and you hit a home run,” Nationals manager Dusty Baker said. “He had a rough night going up to then.”
The Phillies did get a strong start from right-hander Jerad Eickhoff, who hurled six shutout innings and struck out five Nationals.
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Scherzer throws goose eggs: In the first first three innings, right-hander Max Scherzer threw 68 pitches. In the following two, he threw just 13. By the time, he left the game, Scherzer threw 117 …
