Nats overcome deficit, long delay to sink Fish

WASHINGTON -- A few hours after learning that right-hander Stephen Strasburg was being shut down for the rest of the season, the Nationals came back after a two-hour, 33-minute rain delay and defeated the Marlins, 7-6, in 10 innings at Nationals Park on Saturday afternoon.

The game resumed in the bottom of the ninth inning. Jayson Werth led off with a solo home run on a 3-2 pitch off Heath Bell to tie the score at 6.

"We had a nice little rain delay. I got a little massage, changed clothes, had a chicken salad and then we tied it up. It was well-written," Werth said. "The heater was up. Once I got to 2-2, they probably are not going mess around with me on breaking stuff. He has a good fastball. He likes to work up in the zone. I got a pitch that was probably on top of the zone. It was up just enough."

An inning later, the Nationals had the bases loaded against Chad Gaudin with one out when Corey Brown swung at a 1-0 pitch and hit a fly ball that glanced off the glove of right fielder Giancarlo Stanton, allowing Ian Desmond to score the winning run. Brown was given a base hit on the play.

"It was a great feeling to come through in the end, but you have to give a lot of props to Jayson Werth. He led off the [ninth] inning with the home run to tie it up," Brown said.

The Nationals improved their record to 86-53 and remain 6 1/2 games ahead of the Braves in the NL East.

"What a game," Nationals manager Davey Johnson said. "I got to use everybody and it was fun."

Johnson said he and general manager Mike Rizzo feared there that the umpires would end the game with the Nationals behind, 6-5, but the game resumed at 6:30 p.m. ET.

"We were given a 15-, 10-minute notice that we were going to [play]. The grounds crew did a heck of a job getting the field ready." Johnson said. "The energy, the way we were going, it was let's get two [runs]. It was fun to see that much energy after that delay."

Hours earlier, Ross Detwiler was the antithesis of what he was against the Cubs. He pitched seven shutout innings on Monday, but lasted five innings and allowed five runs -- three earned -- on seven hits vs. the Marlins.

Detwiler got off to a slow start in the first inning, allowing solo home runs to Gorkys Hernandez and Giancarlo Stanton. In that same inning, Nationals left-hander Gio Gonzalez was ejected for arguing balls and strikes with home-plate umpire Todd Tichenor.

The Marlins made it a 3-0 game in the second inning, when Donnie Murphy scored on a double by Hernandez.

The Marlins added to their scoring by the fifth inning. With two runners on and two outs, Justin Ruggiano hit a ball that went under the glove of first baseman Adam LaRoche, scoring Donovan Solano. John Buck then singled past the glove of left fielder Michael Morse, scoring Carlos Lee.

The Nationals made it a close game against left-hander Mark Buehrle, with Bryce Harper hitting his 19th homer of the season in the fifth to cut the deficit to two.

A throwing error by Ryan Zimmerman allowed Solano to score the sixth run for the Marlins.

Washington made it a one-run game in the eighth inning. After Harper was hit by a pitch, Zimmerman hit a two-run homer off A.J. Ramos, and it looked like the Nats weren't done.

They had runners on first and second with no outs, but Ryan Webb managed to get out of the inning by getting Desmond to hit into a force play and striking out Danny Espinosa and Roger Bernadina to end the threat.

"What I see is the same [stuff] all year long. Blown games. That's the bottom line," Marlins manager Ozzie Guillien said.

Washington's bullpen -- Craig Stammen, Christian Garcia, Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen -- held the Marlins to one run in five innings and struck out a combined 10 batters.