Worley, Stanton lead Marlins over Nationals

Vance Worley has quickly become the Marlins greatest weapon against the Washington Nationals.

His last start against the Nats (last week at Marlins Park) resulted in him tossing seven scoreless innings. Tuesday night, he was able to work his way through the Nationals lineup with little-to-no issues. Other than Brian Goodwin scoring on a Bryce Harper groundout, Worley left the game after the sixth with the Marlins in the lead 4-1. This was also Worley’s first set of consecutive wins since April 2015 with the Pirates.

As we have all seen, the Marlins can’t rely on their bullpen and injuries have hurt them on both sides of the ball. However, their bats have been on fire, and at the helm of their offensive prowess is none other than MLB’s leader in home runs, Giancarlo Stanton. Derek Dietrich and Stanton both delivered tonight, with DD going DDeep in the fourth inning and Stanton matching his career-high in the fifth inning.

Watch this human destroy a baseball. EXPLICIT CONTENT WARNING (if you’re a baseball).

The Fish added some insurance going into the home stretch of the game. Miguel Rojas scored on a Dee Gordon ground rule double and Dietrich lined a base hit to right to push in Gordon and Stanton. Tomas Telis left J.T. Realmuto stranded on third, but the game was strongly locked up at 7-1.

Dustin McGowan seemed to struggle more than anyone else tonight for the Marlins. After going 0.2 IP with 2 earned runs Saturday against the Braves, McGowan looked to improve his consistently-inflating 3.43 ERA. However, he gave up three consecutive hits and a run before Harper hit his sacrifice fly.

Taking over for McGowan in the eighth, Drew Steckenrider capped any further attempts at a rally by striking out two and getting Wilmer Difo on a fly out to left.

Brad Ziegler, everyone’s favorite silver fox, closed out the game without any issues.

Adam Conley will take the mound Wednesday night for the third game of four in D.C. Gio Gonzalez, in his first start back from paternity leave, takes the helm for the Nats.