Would-be National Worley takes them down again

Had things gone as originally planned, Vance Worley most likely would have started tonight's game at Nationals Park, not for the visiting club for the home squad.

The Nationals signed Worley to a minor league contract last winter and offered him an invitation to big league camp. It was a non-guaranteed deal, but given the right-hander's track record and versatility, he looked like a strong bet to make the opening day roster and serve as both a long man in the bullpen and emergency starter if anyone in the regular rotation went down.

By the end of March, though, the Nationals decided there simply wasn't room for Worley on their 25-man roster. His unimpressive spring (4.80 ERA, 24 baserunners in 15 innings) didn't help his cause, but neither did the late signing of Joe Blanton, the emergence of Enny Romero (who was out of options) and the surprisingly strong performance of fellow non-roster invitee Jeremy Guthrie.

So it was that on March 29 the Nationals informed Worley he wasn't making the club, and the 29-year-old exercised his right to opt out of his deal and become a free agent. Little did either side know what would happen four months later, when Worley would dominate the Nationals twice in the span of six days, both times while wearing a Marlins uniform.

What on earth is going on here?

"A lot," Worley told reporters after tonight's 7-3 victory. "A lot of stuff is going on. It's been a wild ride, from spring training to going to the minor leagues to coming back up and trying to figure out the major league ball again. And now I finally got it figured out and I'm pitching the way I have in the rest of my career. It was just a matter of time before things equaled out."

Pressed into a starting role when Miami needed rotation help, Worley has for the last week pitched like a guy who should've been doing that all along. He shut out the Nationals on two hits over seven innings Wednesday night, then returned to face them again tonight and held the same lineup - the one that leads the National League in runs, homers and OPS - to one run over six innings.

"They're good," Worley said. "They're really good. They are. It's just been small adjustments."

The Nationals, to be fair, have not been fielding their full lineup in months due to injuries. And they weren't even fielding their full backup lineup tonight, with Daniel Murphy dealing with a sore hip, Howie Kendrick dealing with a sore back and Matt Wieters getting the night off.

That said, the lineup Dusty Baker did field felt like it should have done more tonight, especially with all the intel they picked up on Worley from last week's game. And it's not like the right-hander came out and changed his entire plan of attack in the rematch.

"I don't think it was much different," said Brian Goodwin, who had three hits in the game (only one off Worley). "I think it's pretty much the same thing we expected and the same thing we saw last time out. It was just on us to make the adjustment."

The Nationals did threaten more times against Worley in this game than they did last week, when they managed all of two singles and sent the minimum to the plate over seven innings. But they went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and watched as the Marlins turned three double plays, all with Ryan Zimmerman at the plate.

Two of those twin-killings weren't entirely Zimmerman's fault. He struck out on a high 3-2 fastball in the bottom of the first and then watched as Adrián Sanchez was thrown out trying to steal third. He grounded into a traditional 6-4-3 double play in the fifth. But he lined out to left field with one out in the seventh, only to see Sanchez lose track of the situation and round second base before realizing what happened and get doubled up easily at first base to kill another rally.

"I just thought there was two outs," said Sanchez, who did have three hits and a sacrifice bunt.

"That's a mistake where you have to know how many outs there are," said Baker, who was unable to make pitching changes tonight after his knee locked up on him. "I'm sure it won't happen again, but it won't alleviate that mistake tonight. ... We had Worley on the ropes. And then he was nibbling and having to swing at bad pitches. A couple times I thought we had him. They got him out of there right on time."

Sure enough, Marlins manager Don Mattingly pulled his starter after six innings and turned over the rest to his bullpen. The Nationals pushed across two runs in the seventh against Dustin McGowan, but that wasn't enough to make up for the four runs A.J. Cole surrendered and the three runs Miami tacked on against relievers Sammy Solís and Joe Blanton.

Cole got the start tonight, as he did last week in Miami, because the Nationals needed rotation help with Stephen Strasburg on the disabled list and Gio Gonzalez missing time for the birth of his second child. In an alternate universe, it might well have been Worley taking the mound in the Nationals' home whites, not the Marlins' road blacks.

Instead, the man who left West Palm Beach in late March unemployed took down the Nats for the second time in a week.

"Not too bad. Not too bad," Worley said. "I knew they were going to be aggressive again, and I think we handled the lineup fairly well."