Nationals complete stunning rally to topple Orioles 7-6

On a night that was looking absolutely dreadful for Washington sports fans, the local baseball club managed to bring a ray of sunshine with its most dramatic comeback of the young season, toppling a previously thorn-in-their-side rival in the process.

Matt Wieters' bases-loaded single in the bottom of the ninth brought home the tying and winning runs and took down his former team while catapulting the Nationals to a stunning 7-6 victory over the Orioles.

Wieters' smoked liner past first baseman Chris Davis capped a remarkable comeback for a Nationals club that had lost in similar fashion Tuesday night at Camden Yards, bringing at least some sense of redemption for a team that certainly needed it.

Down 6-2 in the eighth, the Nationals got new life when Michael A. Taylor blasted a two-run homer off Alec Asher. And when Matt Albers struck out the side in the top of the ninth, the heart of the lineup readied itself to face Brad Brach with one last shot at pulling off a comeback.

Jayson Werth set the tone, as he so often has, by battling through an 11-pitch at-bat that ended with a ball soaring over the fence. His opposite-field homer on a 3-2 pitch from Brach ignited what remained of the crowd and set the tone for the final frame.

Bryce Harper then kept it going with a base hit to left, hustling his way into a double. Ryan Zimmerman, stuck in a sudden slump, grounded out to the mound, but then Buck Showalter decided to intentionally walk Daniel Murphy and put the winning run on base.

Anthony Rendon's single to center loaded the bases and set the stage for Wieters, the longtime Orioles catcher who received a hero's welcome home earlier this week at Camden Yards but now had a chance to stick it to his old team. He did just that, roping his game-winning single and setting off a wild celebration.

The Nationals had been in position to lose their third straight to the Orioles, fourth straight overall, after a shaky start from Stephen Strasburg. Strasburg was at times dominant - he struck out five of seven batters during one stretch - but he was done in by two rough sequences, each producing multiple runs.

The Orioles plated three in the top of the second after Strasburg let the bottom four batters in their lineup all reach safely (a hit-by-pitch and three singles, one of them a bunt). A sacrifice fly and an RBI single by Adam Jones made it 3-0 for the visitors and left the D.C. crowd restless.

Baltimore got its two other runs off Strasburg in rapid fashion. After Davis delivered a two-out single in the top of the fifth, Mark Trumbo launched a pitch deep to left-center and into the second-to-last row of the restaurant area. That 461-foot blast - among the longest homers ever hit to that portion of the ballpark - left Strasburg with five runs charged to his name, his worst start of the season.

In some ways, Strasburg was better than his counterpart, who needed 119 pitches just to complete five innings. But Wade Miley made pitches when he needed to make them, leaving the Nationals frustrated throughout.

Despite nine baserunners in those five innings against Miley, the Nats scored only twice. They got a two-out RBI single from Taylor in the bottom of the fourth, but they squandered a golden opportunity to put a real dent into Miley in the bottom of the fifth.

With the bases loaded and nobody out, Zimmerman struck out swinging at a 3-2 pitch that appeared to be out of the zone. Murphy drove in a run but created the second out of the inning with a grounder to first. And Rendon lined out to right to quash that potential rally, perhaps the most symbolic sequence of events in this game to that point.

The Orioles added an insurance run in the seventh when Manny Machado took Blake Treinen deep.