MIAMI _ The Miami Marlins' offense had no problem executing against the Washington Nationals' Max Scherzer on Saturday night to clinch their first series victory of the season.
Sunday against Stephen Strasburg was another story.
The Marlins managed just two hits off the three-time All-Star while striking out 11 times during Strasburg's eight shutout innings on the mound to drop the series finale against the Nationals 5-0 and miss out on their first series sweep since September 2017. The Marlins won the first two games of the series 3-2 on Friday and 9-3 on Saturday. It's the sixth shutout loss of the season for the Marlins (6-16), who went 3-6 over their nine-game homestand.
The Nationals (10-10) scored two of their three runs on solo home runs off Trevor Richards that barely cleared the left-field fence _ first by Ryan Zimmerman with two outs and a full count in the third inning and later by Brian Dozier with one out in the seventh. In between the two homers, Adam Eaton scored on a sacrifice fly from Howie Kendrick in the sixth that scored Adam Eaton from third base and could have been an extra-base hit if Lewis Brinson didn't make a running grab in deep center field.
Zimmerman hit his second homer of the game in the ninth inning off reliever Tyler Kinley, and a Wilmer Difo RBI single off Wei-Yin Chen four batters later closed scoring.
The Marlins, meanwhile, managed to put just seven runners on base all game _ three after Strasburg exited following the eighth _ and went 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position. Kyle Barraclough, who the Marlins traded to the Nationals in October for international pool money, and Sean Doolittle combined to pitch a scoreless ninth to seal the shutout.
Barraclough struck out Curtis Granderson and Martin Prado to start the frame before walking Brian Anderson and Neil Walker before being pulled for Doolittle. Starlin Castro promptly reached base on a fielding error by third baseman Kendrick to load the bases but Miguel Rojas flew out to right field to end it.
