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Nationals kick off series against visiting D-backs

Aug 18, 2014 - 2:47 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - Washington manager Matt Williams and his team welcome the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday night to Nationals Park for the first contest of a four-game series.

Washington, which leads the National League's East Division by six games over the Atlanta Braves, picked up an 11-inning victory over Pittsburgh on Sunday to complete a three-game sweep of a Pirates team that's just 1 1/2 games out of the NL's second wild card playoff berth.

It was the Nationals' sixth consecutive win.

"It's a fun team," Washington's Scott Hairston said. "We're an exciting team, we stay in it all the way."

The Nationals have won five in a row at home while averaging 5.4 runs per game. They were helped Sunday by the return of outfielder Jayson Werth, who'd missed five games.

Werth is batting .350 and has three home runs and 12 runs batted in over his last 17 games against Arizona.

"I don't want to come back before I'm ready, but at the same time it felt like we'd progressed enough and felt good enough to get in there," he said.

Jordan Zimmermann gets the call for the Nationals on the mound after tossing 6 1/3 innings and allowing a single unearned run while beating the New York Mets, 3-2, on Wednesday.

He's 2-0 with a 1.69 earned run average in his last four starts.

He went 2-2 in his first four starts against Arizona, then got a no-decision against the Diamondbacks on May 12 after allowing five runs and 10 hits in 5 2/3 innings of a game the Nationals ultimately won, 6-5.

Arizona has won just four of its last 14 games against Washington and Vidal Nuno gets the ball for the eighth time since arriving in a deal with the New York Yankees on July 6.

The Diamondbacks are 0-7 in games he's started, while scoring just 13 runs.

He's given up two or fewer runs in four of the seven games he's pitched, including a 5 2/3-inning stint against Cleveland on Wednesday in which he got a no-decision.

The Indians won the game, 3-2.

He has never faced the Nationals.

On Sunday in Miami, Giancarlo Stanton homered and drove in four runs to highlight an offensive barrage that gave the Marlins a 10-3 rout over the Diamondbacks in the finale of a four-game series.

Two of Arizona's runs came in the sixth with Miami already leading 5-0, as Mark Trumbo got the D-backs on the board with an RBI double and Jake Lamb singled in Cliff Pennington. Still, the Diamondbacks were unable to overcome a poor outing from Josh Collmenter (8-7), as the right-hander surrendered five runs on seven hits over just four frames.

In Washington, Scott Hairston's walk-off sacrifice fly in the 11th inning gave the Nationals a 6-5 victory and a three-game sweep over the Pittsburgh Pirates in a back-and-forth affair.

Brandon Cumpton (3-4) gave up a leadoff double to Werth off the left-field wall to start the bottom of the 11th inning. Denard Span's groundout moved Werth to third before Hairston's pinch-hit sac fly to deep left scored the game-winning run.

Asdrubal Cabrera and Ian Desmond each drove in a run and Werth scored twice for the Nationals, who walked off for the second night in a row and won their season-high sixth straight game.

Ross Detwiler (2-2) earned the win after allowing just one hit over the final two innings. Starter Doug Fister did not factor in the decision, but was solid, giving up just two unearned runs on five hits with five strikeouts over seven innings.