Nats hoping comforts of home lead to more runs

The Nationals return to the comforts of their home ballpark tonight after a long 3-7 road trip over the past 11 days. They battled top flight pitching throughout the journey beginning with the likes Francisco Liriano and Gerrit Cole in Pittsburgh and finishing off with hot-shot young arms Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard in New York. Despite Anthony Rendon, Jayson Werth and Ryan Zimmerman rejoining the team on the trip after long stints on the DL, the offense continues to sputter, scoring an average of 2.1 runs per game in the seven losses.

"I think it's a combination of quality pitchers on the other side (and) some guys coming back from injury that have to get some timing back," Nationals manager Matt Williams said. "We got confidence in those guys though. Zim swung the bat good, had a couple of balls he hit right on the money in the middle of the diamond. Anthony and Jayson are getting there on their timing. So a combination on all those things."

Rendon belted his first homer of the year in the first inning last night on a bullet to straightaway center off a 98-mph heater from Syndergaard. The 25-year-old Rendon is hitting .276 (8-for-29) with two doubles and two RBIs in the eight games since he has returned.

Zimmerman's second-inning solo homer last Thursday held up as the game-winner in a tight 1-0 victory over the Marlins. The 11-year veteran is 5-for-23 (.217) since coming off the DL.

Werth collected his fourth hit in his return last night but is hitting just .190 with six strikeouts in five starts after missing over two months with a fractured left wrist.

"I think it comes down to timely hitting," Werth said over the weekend. "We only scored a couple runs. It's probably not gonna get it done. Get the offense going. ... Me, Zim and Tony haven't been back a whole lot. Sometimes it takes a minute to get the cohesiveness of the offense rolling. I just think it's a matter of time before we start putting crooked numbers on the board and get it rolling. We're in these games."

But the Nats aren't just waiting for the veterans who are regaining their form off the DL to help out. After going through hot stretches early in the road trip, players like Ian Desmond and Michael A. Taylor cooled off considerably. Desmond hit just .130 (3-for-23) with 11 strikeouts in Miami and New York, though he did drive in three of the Nats' five runs against the Mets. Taylor had a brutal weekend in the Big Apple, going 0-for-12 with nine strikeouts.

"These guys are gonna be stingy," Desmond said of the Mets starters. "These guys are good pitchers. Don't factor in age. These guys know what they're doing out there. It's as simple as that. We're playing good baseball, and we're going up against some tough pitching. I like where we're at."

The Nationals will get a chance to open up the offense starting tonight with the Diamondbacks coming into the nation's capital. Washington scored a total of 26 runs in winning two out of three in Arizona back in mid-May.