Offense reminds what it can do with Werth and Zimmerman homering

The Nationals lineup was back to where it was supposed to be from opening day in a 6-1 win over Pittsburgh on Friday, minus center fielder Adam Eaton, who is out for the season with a major knee injury.

The lineup delivered with a pair of electrifying innings where it contributed multiple hits -- the sixth and the eighth. The offense even put together four hits in five at-bats in the first inning to plate an early run.

The game was put away in the eighth inning, when Ryan Zimmerman and Jayson Werth hit back-to-back homers. For Zimmerman, it was his second homer of the game, and 35th and 36th of the season, a new career high. For Werth, it was his 10th of the season.

If Howie Kendrick can hit a homer by the end of the weekend, the Nats will have 11 players with 10 or more homers this season.

Werth was just happy to finally get one to go after getting robbed at the wall a few times this week.

"Yeah, its way better when it goes over the fence," Werth said. "Kind of getting tired of hitting it to the fence. But encouraging signs lately, feeling pretty good, and tonight, too, even on my first two at-bats off Cole where I struck out, I spit on some good pitches and timing was good. He was upper velocity he was throwing 97, 98 mph.

"I was able to have some good at-bats even with the strikeouts, it was encouraging signs, I felt good having those at-bats and then two-strike base hit and then hit an off-speed pitch for a homer, so I'm encouraged. I'm feeling good. The important thing is my legs are back. I feel like I'm fast, or fast-ish, fast for my age, I guess you could say. I'm looking forward to October."

Zimmerman's first homer came in the sixth, a two-run shot, that was part of a three-run outburst, helping the Nats to a 4-0 lead. He finished with two doubles and two homers, plus four RBIs, erasing a seven-strikeout series in Philadelphia to begin the week.

"When I'm going well, the whole field's in play," Zimmerman said. "When I start to scuffle a little bit, I lose that right field, right-center approach, and try and pull things too much, and swing at bad pitches. But that's how it's been my whole career. I go through ups and downs and I feel healthy and strong going into the end of the season. It's nice to have a night like tonight in the last few games to have that positive momentum going into next week."

And about that lineup, Bryce Harper went 0-for-4 and batted second again, but all hands were on deck as the team gets ready for the real test next Friday against the Cubs.

"Nice to have some days off and kind of have everyone trending upward health-wise, and kind of have the whole lineup back in there, too," Zimmerman said. "It's nice. It was good. Every team goes through injuries throughout the year, but to see that lineup and everyone out there, it was fun."

Manager Dusty Baker said they will monitor Harper today to see if he will play again tonight. Harper played into the seventh inning Friday night, his longest stretch out this week as he returns from a knee injury of his own.

"We got to see how he feels tonight," Baker said after the game. "It's on a day-to-day basis. If he came out of tonight not being sore - I mean we certainly like to and he needs to. But if he can't, we'll deal with that when we get there."

But having Zimmerman and Werth connecting only adds to, when healthy, a potent lineup that will cause big problems for National League pitchers in the postseason.