Nats living on the edge in back-to-back shutouts

FLUSHING, N.Y. - For the second straight day, the Nationals received an incredible pitching performance, this time from right-hander Doug Fister, as they held on to shut out the Mets 1-0 and take the four-game series.

"Well, the last two have been kind of the same," Nationals manager Matt Williams said. Good starting pitching. Good bullpen and then turning it over to Drew (Storen). It's good. 1-0 is never fun but we'll take it any way we can get it."

It's the second time the Nationals have made a bit of history on this 10-day roadtrip. Wednesday's epic eight-run comeback win against the Braves was the first of its kind to go into the record books, and now the back-to-back 1-0 shutouts of the Mets become the first time in the 47 years of the Nationals/Expos franchise that the team has accomplished the feat. In fact, according to Elias, you have to go all the way back to August of 1915 since the Washington Senators last won consecutive games by a score of 1-0.

"Nice. That's cool," Storen said after pitching a perfect ninth for his seventh save. "That's obviously great for the starters but, selfishly and biasedly, that's even better for the bullpen to be able to hold those down because those are really tight games."

Fister held the Mets scoreless through 6 1/3 innings, allowing just five hits with no walks and three strikeouts. Right-handers Tanner Roark and Aaron Barrett along with lefty Matt Thornton combined to lock down the Mets in 1 2/3 innings of high-pressured relief before Storen was called on to shut the door in the ninth.

"Our pitching was fantastic the last two days," Williams said.

It actually was exceptional over the last five days when no member of the starting rotation gave up more than three earned runs. That the first time this season we've seen these imposing five starting pitchers run through a turn in dominant fashion as the Nats came away with wins in four of the games.

Like yesterday, the Nats somehow made an early run hold up. This time it was a two-out broken bat flare into right field from first baseman Ryan Zimmerman that scored left fielder Jayson Werth in the top of the first for the game's only run. Zimmerman looked toward the bench with a smile and his hands in the air when he reached the bag after the ball fell safely just beyond the outstretched glove of Mets first baseman Lucas Duda.

"It's the only hits that nobody catches for me," Zimmerman said. "If I hit the ball hard, somebody catches it. I guess I'll hit the ball soft every time."

"It always makes you feel better until you get a home run robbed. Then it's not that good."

That's what happened in Zimmerman's next bat when he cranked a deep fly ball to left field, which looked like his third homer of the season until Mets left fielder Michael Cuddyer leaped up to snag it at the top edge of the wall.

It's truly amazing the Nats were able to come away with a couple of victories in the last three games having scored a grand total of two runs. The 11-year veteran Zimmerman indicated he wasn't concerned about the futile offense in recent days.

"No. We scored, I don't know, 50 runs in Atlanta," Zimmerman said. "It's one of those things. I wish we could get a hit every time. But the pitcher gets paid to get us out as well. And sometimes, they're good."

The last three games with the Mets could've gone either way. The starting pitching on both sides was stellar in nail-biting situations throughout.

"That's why they're in first place because they've been pitching well," Williams said of the Mets. "Their offense has been good for them. We were able in the last couple games to shut 'em down and get just enough. We're happy about that. Now we get a chance to head home. It's been a long roadtrip."

The Nationals leave New York with a completely different mindset than when they departed Miami after being swept last weekend. Winners of five of their last six, the Nats now stand four games behind the Mets as they return home to D.C.

"The second half of this roadtrip we started to play better," Zimmerman said. "We needed to start playing better. We weren't playing good baseball and that's why we were losing. These last two series, we started to do things better. Today we had a ton of chances to score runs but couldn't get any big hits, but our pitchers picked us up. We got a big win to take three of four from them. They're a really good team."