Murphy on Nats' young guns lifting club to win: "They bring energy"

The Nationals edged the Braves 7-6 on Saturday night with their young guns making it happen.

Players like Trea Turner, Pedro Severino and Reynaldo Lopez all played a major part in the series-evening win.

Turner finished a double away from the cycle, Severino contributed a pair of base hits and called the game for Lopez, who went a major league career-high seven strong innings, allowing only one run on five hits for the win.

It was a night that also meant a lot in outposts like Hagerstown and Auburn, Woodbridge and Harrisburg, Viera and Syracuse.

The scouts and player development personnel in the system had to have a collective smile on their faces seeing these young guns help earn a win for the Nats.

"Really happy for those guys. Many player development staff members and scouts had a hand in their success. They showed they belong," said Nationals director of player development Mark Scialabba via text. "Very proud of them."

Compared to the 22-year-old Lopez and the 23-year-old Severino, Turner might feel more like a grizzled vet. But Turner is also just 23, having all of 26 games in the bigs, and he showed something Saturday night that just adds to his value: a triple, a homer, a single and three runs scored.

Turner says because the Nats have good hitters and good pitchers up and down the roster, he can just concentrate on doing his job and not feel like he has to do too much.

"I think it's a little more relaxing," Turner said. "I think we have a lot of good bats in the lineup, so you don't feel like you have to do everything there. The same thing when you're on the mound. I feel like we play pretty good defense, pretty solid defense.

"That way you can just throw strikes and let them put the ball in play, not try to strike everybody out. That combination where you can relax and trust yourself and trust your teammates, I think that makes it easier for us to win and win consistently."

Oh, and about that double ... Turner grounded out to second and flew out to right field in his final two chances for the cycle. Baker said they were hoping he could get to the achievement.

"I'll tell you, Trea had an outstanding game," Baker said. "We were all rooting for him to hit for the cycle because I haven't seen many of those. I think the last one I saw was (Nationals bench coach) Chris Speier when he was still playing.

"One, two, three did have an outstanding night. You can't ask much more than that. Then Trea had another opportunity, which usually doesn't come around. Again, he had the opportunity because he had the hardest part out of the way, the triple, when you're going for the cycle. I'm just glad we won that game."

The 1-2-3 was also Ben Revere with two triples and Daniel Murphy slamming a two-run shot and finishing with four RBIs. Murphy, who really is the grizzled veteran, appreciates what Turner, Severino and Lopez bring to the table.

"I think it speaks to the talent in this organization," Murphy said after last night's game. "Trea has a massive night tonight. He's been so fun to watch. He's been up here for 20, 25 games. He's impacted every single one of them in a positive way. Sevy has another two hits tonight. He hasn't played since Arizona, if I'm not mistaken. He had two hits out there.

"They bring energy. They're focused. They're throwing the ball well. As a staff, Rey-Rey threw the ball really well tonight. Like I said, to go seven innings in that mugginess out there was impressive."