Nationals focused on taking care of their own business

It's been a volatile month for the Nationals, beginning with a sweep by the Mets in New York, where the balance of power in the National League East changed hands. Boosted by several trade deadline moves, including the acquisition of slugger Yoenis Cespedes, the Mets have gone from one of the worst offenses in baseball to the best over the past month.

New York owns two seven-game winning streaks, boasting an 18-8 record in August while the Nats have reversed, playing to an 11-16 mark and falling as far as 6 1/2 games back.

On Saturday, for the first time in 11 days, the Nationals were finally able to gain some ground on the Mets. With the Red Sox dropping the Mets 3-1 yesterday afternoon, the Nats took advantage of their opportunity to pick up a game with their 5-1 win over the Marlins last night.

"Everybody knows," Nationals manager Matt Williams said when asked if his team paid attention to the Mets' result. "Everybody understands that at this point we have to win games. We can't control anything else. If we win, we have opportunity to do that. If we don't, then we don't. (Sunday is) another opportunity. If we can win that one, then we can have that same chance, as well."

Jordan Zimmermann limited Miami to one run over seven innings, claiming his third straight win. The right-hander said he only focused on taking the mound before the game.

"I didn't see what was going on, but obviously I looked after and saw (the Mets) lost," Zimmermann said. "So that's good. We need to play one game at a time and try not to worry about those guys."

The same applied for Zimmermann's catcher, Wilson Ramos, who extended his hitting streak to seven games with a single in the fifth. Ramos is batting .360 (9-for-25) with a three homers, a double, five RBIs and five runs scored over the hot stretch.

"To me, I don't want to think about (the Mets)," Ramos said. "I'm concentrating on my team. We need to win games. We have one more month left. We'll see what happens. We have to keep playing baseball, play hard. I don't care about the other team."

Meanwhile, after smacking a two-run homer in the sixth inning, Clint Robinson was asked if he checked the Mets score before playing.

"I don't know about everybody else but I (did)," Robison somewhat refreshingly admitted. "That's who we're chasing in the playoff race. If I see that they lost and it's a chance for us to gain a game, absolutely. I want that just as bad as I do any other win. We saw it and it's just a good opportunity for us to gain a game and we went out and got it."

The Nationals have won five of their last seven games and have a chance to seize their fourth straight series win with fireballer Stephen Strasburg on the hill this afternoon.

"You're not gonna go perfect in this game," Robinson said. "You can't expect to go out and sweep a team every single time you play them. There's gonna be losses and we're not gonna win out the rest of the year, I'm sure. It would be great if we did, but more than likely, not gonna happen. We just go out and take care of our business. We've said we're not worried about what the Mets are doing, but we also know that's who were chasing. So we have to just go out there and do what we do and win ball games."

Ryan Zimmerman's solo homer in the third opened up the scoring. The veteran has driven in 11 runs over his last six games. After the win, Zimmerman reiterated the Nats' position as August winds down with 34 games remaining in the season.

"It's the big leagues, you're not gonna win every single game," Zimmerman said. "It doesn't matter if you're playing the Marlins, the Cardinals, ... it's not possible to win every single game at this level. We're gonna lose. We gotta just keep playing good baseball and taking care of ourselves and hopefully (the Mets) can come back to us. But we can't worry about anyone but us."

Today's finale with the cellar-dwelling Marlins seems like a must-win situation, especially with a three-game series against the Cardinals, owners of the best record in the majors, beginning tomorrow in St. Louis.