Nats roll through "epic" homestand with eighth straight series win

A sold-out Nationals Park watched the home team notch its eighth straight series win with today's 4-1 win over the Phillies. The Nationals are on a 19-5 clip over their last 24 games, vaulting them to first place in the National League East, and the fans are responding. 41,044 filled the ball park to see their young, budding superstar Bryce Harper drive in the go-ahead run in the fifth and another in the seventh to reclaim the major league lead with 41 RBIs.

"I thrive on big crowds," Harper said. "Of course. I love playing in front of a lot of people. If it's a little crowd, I hate playing. I mean, truly. I'm not trying to be rude, but a little crowd, I can't stand it. So being able to have the fans that we do show up every single day. ... You know, it's kind of tough when we go on the road and some places don't sell out. So having the fans that we do come out here every single night, I mean, this homestand was epic, having the fans that we did. It was a lot of fun. We were in it. We thrive off of that. I think they can sense that we're going to do something special, and we want to do that for them, and it's a lot of fun."

The Nats received 6 1/3 strong innings from Gio Gonzalez, who claimed his fourth win of the season by only allowing one run on seven hits, with one walk and seven strikeouts. It was a good bounce back for Gonzalez, who has been inconsistent this season. He was coming off getting rocked for 11 runs over 10 innings in his last two starts.

"He was down in the strike zone, which is good," Nationals manager Matt Williams said. "If he wanders, generally it's up and away from the right-hander. Today he didn't do that. Today he was down and that's the secret to his success. It just opens up everything else for him. It opens up the inside corner for him, opens up his changeup and his breaking ball. He threw them all today really well. He had some early-count breaking balls for strikes and then changeups down and away from the righties, too.

"He was good from the first inning."

Gonzalez credited his performance on making some minor changes based off of receiving some advice from a couple of his teammates.

"Another big piece to today's success was the help of Drew Storen," Gonzalez said. "Finding little pieces that I needed to find, helping me to redefine my mechanics. It's just fun picking everyone's brains. The other day I was picking Max (Scherzer's) brain just seeing to go out there and attack the strike zone and change the eyesight of some of the hitters.

The only blemish came in the fourth when the Phillies turned a walk and two singles into their lone run. It didn't matter much because the Nats counterpunched with a run in the bottom of the inning behind a double from Clint Robinson and then an RBI single from Jose Lobaton.

"That's what we want," Lobaton said. "When you're down, you want to right away score. We did it. I think the team did it pretty good today. We fight."

An average of 38,732 fans came out to see the Nats take four-of-five in this homestand, which included back-to-back sellouts over the weekend.

"That's wonderful, isn't it? Just phenomenal," Williams said. "We appreciate it. It gives the guys life, energy. It's difficult when you go out to the West Coast and then have a homestand. We're just getting back into the Eastern time zone again. It takes a while. It was loud, and folks were on their feet today. It gives us energy and it really helps a lot."

Williams indicated that Anthony Rendon reported to Nats Park this morning feeling good after a full work day yesterday. Williams laid out the plan for Rendon as the Nationals head back out on the road for six games against the Cubs and Reds.

"He'll go to Florida, and he'll start some games down there in a controlled environment where he can lead off an inning, he can play as many innings of defense as he wants to play and work through a day," Williams said. "The plan is that he'll play about three or four innings tomorrow and then move on from there. Whatever that amounts to in those three or four innings, he'll do, and then see how he is the next day. He had a good three days of work here."