Phillies 1 - 5 Nationals
Final
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Nats earn NL's top seed with win over Phils

Oct 3, 2012 - 11:50 PM Washington, DC (Sports Network) - Michael Morse, Tyler Moore and Ryan Zimmerman homered as the Washington Nationals secured the NL's top seed with a 5-1 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.

The NL East-champion Nationals (98-64) came into Wednesday's regular-season finale needing a win or a loss by the Reds to get home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

The Nationals will play Sunday at the winner of Friday's wild-card game between Atlanta and St. Louis.

"It's quite an accomplishment [to have the best record]," Zimmerman said. "Obviously, winning the division was a goal, and now we have done that. And now we have a chance to go do some stuff in the playoffs. This is a great season, a great team, a good group of guys. We have accomplished a lot that we should be proud of, but we have a lot more to accomplish, hopefully."

Edwin Jackson (10-11) gave up one run on six hits over 6 2/3 innings for Washington, which won the final two contests of this three-game series. The right-hander struck out six and walked one.

Darin Ruf knocked in the lone run for the Phillies (81-81), who missed out on the playoffs for the first time since 2006.

Philadelphia starter Cliff Lee (6-9) allowed three runs on eight hits while striking out seven over six innings.

The Phillies were trying to finish with a record above .500 for a 10th consecutive season.

"It didn't happen this year," Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins said. "It's pretty obvious the reasons why, no excuses. Reasons that we weren't in the race pretty much for a lot of the season. We gave ourselves a chance when we got healthy."

Mark DeRosa of the Nationals was robbed of a homer in the first inning. Juan Pierre made a nice leaping catch at the wall in left field to record the second out.

Philadelphia's lone run of the game came in the fourth. Carlos Ruiz doubled to right, moved to third on Domonic Brown's groundout and raced home on Ruf's sacrifice fly.

But the Nationals responded with two runs in the bottom half. Zimmerman led off with a homer to right. Morse followed with a double and scored on Moore's double down the left-field line.

Moore's solo homer to left in the sixth made it a 3-1 game.

Washington tacked on two more runs in the eighth to put the game away. Jonathan Papelbon walked Zimmerman before giving up a homer to Morse.

Game Notes

The Phillies and Nationals split the season series, 9-9 ... Lee fell to 5-3 in eight career meetings with the Nats ... Jackson improved to 1-4 lifetime against Philadelphia ... Tyson Brummett made his MLB debut in the eighth for the Phillies ... Philadelphia announced after the game that first base coach Sam Perlozzo, bench coach Pete Mackanin and hitting coach Greg Gross will not have their contracts renewed for next season ... Nationals manager Davey Johnson left Wednesday's game early because he felt numbness in his left leg, which was later diagnosed as a nerve issue after he underwent a series of X- rays. He expects to be at full strength for the playoffs.






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