Zimmerman and Werth continue uptick at plate

MIAMI - This may be the time of year when things turn the right way for slugger Ryan Zimmerman.

On Friday night, he made another statement that his power swing may be coming back.

Zimmerman's loud solo shot over the left-center field wall opened the scoring for the Nationals as they went on to down the Marlins 4-1.

"It's one good swing," he said. "But I've been feeling good the last three or four games, I've hit some balls hard. Not getting stuff for it, but in New York I thought I had good at-bats. I feel like I'm not far away."

Zimmerman has now had 17 hits in his past 17 games and a clip just around the .250 mark, not his normal big time numbers, but that doesn't bother him.

"Unfortunately, it's kind of like this every year for me," he said. "Just keep grinding it out until I get hot for a month or two months, and then by the end of the yea, it's usually the numbers are where they are supposed to be.

"I haven't really done much or gotten hot yet and the numbers are still decent. And then you go on a five- or six-week tear that I usually go on and then be right back where I'm supposed to be."

Almost on the same line, Jayson Werth has started to find his bat after being moved up in the order to the No. 2 spot.

"Sometimes you flip through it a little bit and it just lines up for you," Werth said. "I think I was close anyways. It could be any number of things, but mainly trying to keep that feel and keep it going."

It also doesn't hurt when it's your birthday.

He opened Friday's game - his 37th birthday - with a hard single in the first and later added a double. Since he joined the Nationals in 2011, Werth is hitting .429 (6-for-14) with two homers and five RBIs on his birthday.

Does he feel the positive vibes when he plays on his birthday?

"Dusty asked me that before the game, (but) I couldn't recall," Werth said of his numbers on his birthday. "You guys probably know better than I would. Hopefully, we'll have a few more years to get the numbers up a little bit."

Zimmerman and Werth both realized they had a shot at getting to left-hander Justin Nicolino in Friday's 4-1 win.

And like a feeding frenzy, the Nationals took advantage, putting together four extra-base hits in the second inning and scoring four runs.

"Yeah, it's definitely contagious. He was making some mistakes," Zimmerman said. "He's the kind of a guy that depends on us sort of expanding the zone. We did a good job of not swinging at balls off the plate against him and making him throw the ball over the plate, and when he did, we made him pay."

"Yeah, he's a strike thrower," Werth said. "He likes to crowd guys. I think he was missing over the plate. I think we just took advantage of it, put a four-spot on him that was the difference in the game. He's got good stuff."

Baker said with the early-morning arrival Friday, the Nationals' game plan was to attack Nicolino from the outset.

"We wanted to jump them early because we were operating on a low energy level," Baker said. "The longer the game went, the less energy that we had. So we were trying to come out warm - that's why we hit today. We didn't hit much but got some blood flow going out there and it worked because we scored early."

Programming note: Tonight's game will be broadcast on FOX and will appear in parts of the mid-Atlantic, northeast and Florida.