Michael Morse demolishes a baseball, so does Ryan Zimmerman (updated)

If you're driving around the district tonight and happen to have a baseball land on your car, you can thank Michael Morse. Morse just destroyed a Tommy Hanson offering, and there's a decent chance it still hasn't landed. The Nationals have a 3-0 lead thanks to the Morse homer, which brought in Ryan Zimmerman and Adam LaRoche. Both guys reached with two outs. It's Morse's fifth home run of the season, and he's now up to 23 RBIs on the year. He took a 89 mph fastball from Hanson and smacked it off the railing just in front of the Red Porch in left-center, easily 440 feet away. Braves outfielders didn't even turn move as the ball sailed over their heads. They didn't need to. It was clear that ball was long gone right as it left Morse's bat. The Nats outfielder returned to the dugout to a host of smiling teammates, a few of whom were pointing with amazement out to where the ball came down. For the record, the two longest homers hit at Nationals Park this season, according to hittrackeronline.com, both came off the bat of Ian Desmond. Both longballs traveled 441 feet. Since that Web site measures the projected, or true distance of the homers, I wouldn't be surprised if Morse's is listed at 450-plus. Instant update: The estimated distance is in. Hit Tracker has Morse's blast measuring 465 feet. Yup. That ball was crushed. Update II: Ryan Zimmerman has had enough of all this gushing about Morse's home run. He wants to get the attention back on his ridiculous play of late. Zimmerman crushed a three-run, two-out homer of his own in the fourth inning, making it a 6-0 Nats lead and sending the decibel level at Nats Park up a few notches. The home run came down about halfway up the seats in left. It's no 465-foot blast, but it was a healthy shot. Speaking of shots, since getting a cortisone shot in his shoulder June 24, Zimmerman is now hitting .368 with nine home runs and 25 RBIs. That's over a span of 22 games. Update III: The Nats really broke things open in the fifth, adding three more runs to make it 9-0. Stephen Strasburg's bases-loaded walk brought in a run, and Steve Lombardozzi's two-run double piled it on. Atlanta at least made it a ballgame in the sixth inning by scoring four runs on Strasburg, knocking him from the game. The righty finishes having gone 5 1/3 innings, allowing four runs on eight hits. He walked three and struck out five. Not his best effort on his birthday, as the command was off and the velocity faded as the outing went on. But still, he battled and should earn his 11th win of the season.



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