Guzman's jack the lone offense for Nats

Left-hander Kenny Rogers showed why he is the ERA king in the American League this season as the Rangers defeated the Nationals, 8-1, in front of 33,653 at Ameriquest Field on Friday night.
Rogers pitched 6 1/3 innings and gave up one run on eight hits. He struck out three and walked four. Rogers' ERA went down from 2.02 to 1.98.

The lone run came in the seventh inning, when Rogers gave up a solo home run to Cristian Guzman.

For Guzman, his bat seems to be coming around. He finished the night 2-for-4 to raise his batting average to .205. During the month of June, Guzman is hitting .289.

"I'm trying to come back. I'm trying to have my hands ready. I'm having a couple of good swings," Guzman said.

However, most of the Nationals didn't take very good swings on Friday. In fact, the Nationals had numerous opportunities to score against Rogers. The best ones came in the third and seventh innings.

With Marlon Byrd on first and nobody out in the third, Nick Johnson hit a double over Laynce Nix's head in center. Byrd tried to score on the play, but he was nailed at the plate. Vinny Castilla grounded out and Wil Cordero flied out to left field to end the inning.

In the seventh, the Nationals had runners on first and second and one out. Rangers manager Buck Showalter took Rogers out of the game in favor of reliever John Wasdin. Up stepped Castilla, and, on the first pitch, he hit into a double play to end the inning.

"There's nothing wrong with swinging at the first pitch if it's a good pitch and you can do something with it," manager Frank Robinson said. "The only time we notice a person swinging at the first pitch is when he is not successful."

Nationals right-hander John Patterson, on the other hand, wasn't as effective as Rogers. He lasted five innings and gave up four runs on eight hits. Patterson threw 105 pitches and 66 of them were for strikes.

Robinson thought Patterson relied too much on his fastball, and he didn't have good command of his breaking ball.

"He threw a lot of pitches out there. He had over 100 pitches after five innings," Robinson said. "That's too many pitches. If you do that, you cannot go very far in the game."

The Rangers made it a 1-0 game in the second inning when Nix's single brought home Alfonso Soriano, who led off the inning with a double.

In the next inning, Rangers third baseman Hank Blalock made it 2-0 by hitting his 12th home run of the season. Patterson said he threw the ball to a good location, but Blalock managed to hit to out.

"We had been working lefties in a lot all night. He was looking for one pitch," Patterson said. "I made the pitch in the location that I wanted and that's what he was looking for."

The Rangers scored two more runs in the fifth inning. Blalock drove in Michael Young with a single to right, while Soriano drove in Mark Teixeira with a sacrifice fly to left field.

John Patterson / P
Born: 01/30/78
Height: 6'5"
Weight: 210 lbs
Bats: R / Throws: R

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Patterson, a Texas native, admitted that the heat was getting to him by the third inning. He was constantly using the rosin bag to dry his sweaty hands. It was 93 degrees at game time.

"I'd kind of forgotten what it's like during the summer. It's hard to breathe and it's hard to grip the balls. I hardly ever use rosin," Patterson said.

It also didn't help that he had to battle early in the game. For example, in the first inning, he threw 11 pitches to Teixeira before getting him to fly out to right field on the 12th pitch.

"It sets a completely different tempo and pace for the game," Patterson said of the tough start. "I go through two or three broken bats in those first couple innings and I had runners on the whole time. I threw a lot of pitches in that heat and set [the] tempo of the game. That made it hard to overcome."

The Rangers batted around in the eighth and scored four runs off relievers T.J. Tucker and Gary Majewski.

Kevin Mench started things off by hitting his 12th home run of the season off Tucker.

There were runners on first and second and one out, when Tucker had to leave the game because of a hyperextended elbow. Majewski entered and struck out David Dellucci. But then Majewski gave up RBI singles to Young, Teixeira and Blalock.

Robinson really didn't want to use Majewski in the game because the skipper felt that the right-hander was tired. Robinson said Majewski will have the day off on Saturday, and with Tucker out of action for at least three games, the Nationals will be short two relievers against the Rangers.

Majewski said he is not tired. He said he has a lot on his mind. His grandfather, Bruno Majewski, is having heart problems and will have an angioplasty a week from Friday.

"I just showed up to the field and it's just one of those days that I pitched. I wasn't really all there," Majewski said. "The slider still needs some work. I need to get it back down in the zone. I'm trying to do too much. It's just like Spring Training."

Source: http://washington.nationals.mlb.com/