Daniel Hudson, after a month of struggling, finally put together another one of his signature games: he gave up some early hits before settling down and shutting down the opposition to pitch deep into the game for a win. He nearly dropped a complete game shutout on the Washington Nationals, but Hudson gave up two solo two-out homers in the ninth to spoil an otherwise excellent outing.
Through the first three innings, the Nats accumulated four hits, but Hudson proceeded to send down 13 straight batters before a double in the bottom of the seventh inning gave Washington a chance to score. But they didn’t, at least until the final out of the game, when two consecutive batters — Laynce Nix and Jonny Gomes — sent solo homers out of the park to ruin Hudson’s party and send in closer J.J. Putz for the final out. Despite the late trouble, Hudson improved his record to 7-0 when pitching at least eight innings.
The D-backs again had a relatively quiet night offensively, getting only eight hits — one hit less than Washington — but got an RBI single from Lyle Overbay and a two-run, bases-loaded single from Miguel Montero to help put Arizona on the board. Justin Upton also scored on a Gomes error in the fourth after a double from Chris Young.
The D-backs had been looking for anything to help them break out of their six-game slump, and their normally strong one-two punch of Ian Kennedy and Hudson served as the catalysts for a team still looking for productive at-bats. With the win, the D-backs move 2.5 games over the San Francisco Giants in the National League West.
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