Patrick Reddington: Murphy's return to New York a successful one

Daniel Murphy arrived in New York for Washington's three-game set with the Mets a .400 hitter after 37 games with the second organization he's known as a professional.

Murphy signed a 3-year/$37.5M free agent deal with the Nationals in January after seven seasons with the Mets, who drafted him in the 13th Round of the 2006 Draft.

"A lot of great memories in here," he told reporters before his first game in Citi Field as a member of the opposition.

"A lot of great memories in this stadium, with the Mets organization. I thought they treated me as fairly and as first-class as you possibly could and excited for a division matchup. This should be a lot of fun.

"Two teams that are at the top of the division right now, playing well. Should make for a lot of fun. There are a couple pretty good pitchers going tonight, so offense might be a premium."

Murphy was right about that. Noah Syndergaard held the Nats to five hits over seven innings, one of them by Murphy, in what ended up a 2-0 win over Max Scherzer and the Nationals.

In the second game of three, Murphy got the scoring started for Washington in what ended up a 7-1 win, battling Bartolo Colon for eight pitches in their third-inning matchup after falling behind 0-2.

Murphy fouled off five pitches before sending an RBI single by third base to bring Jayson Werth in from second after back-to-back, two-out walks put the Nats' outfielder in scoring position.

Impressive as that at-bat was, Nats' skipper Dusty Baker told reporters Murphy was just doing what a batter should.

"That's what hitting is supposed to be about. You know what I mean?" Baker said.

"Hitting is about a battle and a fight and you foul off some tough pitches. You see guys that hit for average, and good hitters, they fight off those pitches.

"You fight off the pitch, you have an emergency stroke, and then you get a good pitch and then you put the ball in play.

"I don't see why that's such a big deal? I guess it's a big deal because of all these strikeouts that are happening now, but that's how you're supposed to hit. You know what I mean? That's what hitting is, it's a battle between you and the pitcher and it's not a battle if you're just going to strike out."

Murphy got the scoring started in the top of the first in the series finale in Citi Field, taking a hanging 0-2 curve from Matt Harvey out to center for a two-run blast that cleared the fence and landed some 418 feet from home.

Harvey walked Murphy intentionally the second time he came up, and the 31-year-old infielder doubled in his third plate appearance, connecting for his 14th two-base hit of the season.

His 2-for-4 night at the plate left him 4-for-11 over the course of his three-game set in his former home.

On the year, in the first year of his three-year deal with the Nationals, Murphy left New York 60-for-151 on the season (.397/.429/.1.065).

His multi-hit game in the series finale was the 20th multi-hit game in 40 games with Washington, the most in the majors thus far this season.

Murphy's manager was asked, after the 9-1 win, when the last time he had a hitter this close to .400 this deep into a season?

"I don't know," Baker said. "Barry Bonds maybe. And maybe Joey Votto at some point in time. Yeah, boy, I don't know, it's been a while. I mean, that's hitting .400 for a long time.

"It's just hard to imagine guys like Rod Carew and George Brett and Ted Williams and those guys hitting almost .400 the whole season. Boy that's quite a feat. Especially because you get tired.

"You get tired running the bases if you're doing all of the hitting cause you're always on base and you're always running, so that's a big tribute to Daniel, because I don't know where we'd be right now if it wasn't for Daniel."

Patrick Reddington blogs about the Nationals for Federal Baseball and appears here as part of MASNsports.com's season-long initiative of welcoming guest bloggers to our pages. Follow him on Twitter: @federalbaseball. All opinions expressed are those of the guest bloggers, who are not employed by MASNsports.com but are just as passionate about their baseball as our roster of writers.