Nats again score early, never look back to complete sweep

CINCINNATI - At some point this season, a Nationals pitcher will take the mound with his team trailing. Or even tied. That point, though, did not come during the club's three-game weekend series against the Reds.

No, thanks to top-of-the-first runs in all three games at Great American Ball Park, Nationals starters never once stood on the mound with anything but a lead. And thanks to some sustained offense and effective pitching throughout the weekend, no Nats hurler ever threw a pitch with anything but a lead.

Today's 6-5 victory capped an opening weekend that was virtually flawless for the visitors, who swept the series in impressive fashion and (with only a couple of exceptions) barely broke a sweat in the process.

The man who scored the first run that gave the Nationals the lead all three days was at the center of everything. Adam Eaton, fresh off a 5-for-5 performance Saturday, collected two more hits including a two-run homer, leaving the pesky leadoff man with an otherworldly .667 batting average and 2.025 OPS.

Eaton led off all three games of the series with a single, each time coming around to score. Today's trot was a casual one, thanks to Anthony Rendon's rocket into the second deck down the left field line.

Bryce Harper launched his first homer of the season to lead off the sixth, taking starter Sal Romero well into the bleachers in right-center. Eaton then tacked on his second homer just for good measure one inning later, taking veteran Yovani Gallardo deep to right-center. And if that wasn't enough, Harper went and hit his second homer of the day in the top of the ninth, taking electric closer Raisel Iglesias deep to center.

All of that run support made life easy on Gio Gonzalez, who in his season debut talked six innings of one-run ball, issuing only one walk while striking out seven. The Reds didn't manage to get two runners on base in any inning until the sixth, when Adam Duvall's double scored Eugenio Suárez to get them on the board at last.

The Nationals bullpen did create a bit of a situation in the eighth when Sammy Solís (who was brilliant in victory Saturday) failed to retire any of the four batters he faced. That left Ryan Madson to enter a bases-loaded, no-out jam, but the veteran responded by inducing a double-play grounder and a harmless fly ball to escape with only one run across the plate.

Sean Doolittle served up a two-out, two-run homer to Phil Gosselin in the bottom of the ninth, but recorded the final out to earn his second save in as many tries and complete the Nationals' season-opening sweep.