Zimmermann on his illness, his outing and another tight game with the Braves

Today's home opener didn't go the Nationals' way in the win/loss column. It didn't go their way when it came to the review in the bottom of the fifth inning when Ian Desmond's bizarre inside-the-park homer was ruled a ground rule double. It didn't go their way when it came to having three runners thrown out on the basepaths.

The little things add up in games between the Nationals and Braves, and they did today in Washington's 2-1 loss.

One thing that the Nats can come away from today pleased with, however, is the fact that Jordan Zimmermann was able to give them five strong innings of work just a day after he was hit by a bout of the flu.

Not only did Zimmermann pitch pretty darn well given the circumstances, but he also saved the Nationals from having to make this a bullpen game, burning a number of their relievers in a way that could have negatively affected them for the next few days.

"I don't know if it was something I ate or the 24-hour flu or something, but it started at about 2 o'clock in the morning and pretty much went all day," Zimmermann said after allowing one run on four hits with a walk and nine strikeouts. "It would have been tough for me to go out there yesterday. I told them I could go out there, but Tanner (Roark) was on full rest, so give him the ball and I'll get pushed back a day.

"Health-wise, I feel a lot better today than I did yesterday. Yesterday was rough. Long day. Got some fluids and some rest and woke up this morning feeling pretty good. I called skipper, I said I'd be good to go and I was able to go five. I figured he thought that was enough and they didn't want to push it too much. I was happy with how the outing went. Everything was working. Slider was really good and I kept them off-balance for the most part."

Manager Matt Williams said he felt that Zimmermann might have been running out of energy in the fifth due to a lack of food in his system, but Zimmermann said he didn't think that was the case.

"Nah, I just made a couple bad pitches," he said. "I felt like I was still pretty strong, I just left a few balls up over the middle and I had to battle a little bit. But I was able to get out of it and I was good."

One of those balls left up over the middle of the plate was a fastball to Evan Gattis that was belt-high and right there for the burly catcher to drive it deep into the left-center field seats.

"That was supposed to be a fastball away and left it over the middle and up a little bit," Zimmermann said. "He's pretty good with that pitch."

The Gattis homer was the only real blemish for Zimmermann, who had good enough stuff to strike out nine, including two in his final inning of work.

This was another tight, exciting ballgame between two division rivals, which you come to expect when the Nats and Braves square off these days.

"They're always big games against these guys," Zimmermann said. "It's gonna be a battle every time. There's gonna be a lot of close games like this and hopefully we come out on top for most of them."