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Hudson, Braves dispatch Nationals, win fifth straight

Apr 22, 2008 - 4:09 AM By Phil Foley PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

ATLANTA (Ticker) - Tim Hudson continued his mastery of the lowly Washington Nationals.

Hudson pitched effectively into the seventh inning and Brian McCann homered to lead the Atlanta Braves to a 7-3 win over the Nationals on Monday.

Matt Diaz collected three hits and Hudson and Martin Prado each drove in two runs for Atlanta, which won its fifth straight game.

"When you look at this club, I don't think this is the last five-game winning streak we have in us," Diaz said. "When you look at our starters (Nos. 1-5), even with our depth of our pitching staff (with injuries), we're capable of putting together runs of five wins at a time."

Tim Hudson (3-1) has had Washington's number in his 10-year major league career, dominating the Nationals just about each time he took the hill against them.

Monday was no different.

The righthander surrendered two runs - one earned - and 10 hits, walked two and struck out three over 6 2/3 frames to improve to 7-1 with a 1.13 ERA in 11 career starts against the Nationals' franchise.

"I have no idea," Hudson said of his success against Washington. "There's nothing you can put your finger on. Some pitcher's style match with certain offenses."

Hudson, who struggled to break the mid-80 mark in an abbreviated start against the Florida Marlins last Wednesday, regained his missing velocity. Hudson, who had been battling the flu in his last two starts, once again found his fastball back topping off over 90 miles per hour.

"It was nice to go out there and see something with a nine in front of it, instead of an eight," Hudson said. "I'm not going to say that I wasn't concerned with it, but after my bullpen a few days ago, I felt pretty good."

While it wasn't the most efficient of outings for the 32-year-old, it was good enough to dispatch of struggling Washington, which showed exactly why it has dropped 15 of its last 17 games.

The Nationals ran themselves out of three rallies, failed to get a quality start out of yet another starter, and played suspect defense.

In the first, Cristian Guzman was gunned down by 15 feet at the plate by Jeff Francoeur on a single to shallow right. Felipe Lopez also made the first out at the plate in the fifth when he tried to score on Rob Mackowiak's single, which bounced off the glove of Prado into shallow center field.

"Tonight they had a better game plan against me," Hudson said. "They had chances to score, but (the defense) made great plays behind me to get some outs. If those plays don't get made, it's a different ballgame."

Washington capped its blundering base-running extravaganza in the eighth, as pinch-hitter Aaron Boone was nailed at second base after trying to advance to second on Chipper Jones' errant throw to first, ending that frame.

The Nationals couldn't take solace in their starting pitching either.

Nationals starter Matt Chico (0-4) was ineffective, allowing six runs and eight hits with three walks in four innings. The 24-year-old Chico struggled with his command all night, hurling just 9-of-23 first-pitch strikes and hurling just 31 strikes on 79 pitches.

"I just didn't have command," Chico said. "It's extra frustrating especially because I had no pitch I could go to. I didn't have any pitches tonight."

Atlanta scored runs in each of the first three frames, including three in the second.

After McCann found the seats for his fifth homer of the season to lead off the frame, Diaz followed with a walk and advanced to third on Gregor Blanco's single.

Hudson followed with a bunt between the mound and the third-base line, which was fielded by third baseman Ryan Zimmerman.

Diaz, who moved halfway down the line on the play would have been caught in a rundown, but no one covered third base. He scored easily after Zimmerman threw to first base.

Prado capped the inning, plating Blanco with a double to give Atlanta a 4-0 lead.

Washington, which pounded out 13 hits, was trailing 7-0 before it finally got to tiring Hudson in the seventh.

While the RBI double by Willie Harris and sacrifice fly by Lastings Milledge were good enough to snap a 20-inning scoreless streak against Washington by Hudson, they came way too late to change the outcome of the game.

"If you would have told us that we'd have 12 or 13 hits against Tim Hudson, I'd say we'd knock out a win," Nationals catcher Johnny Estrada said. "He did a good job getting out of jams."

Jones, who left Sunday's contest after tweaking in his right quadriceps muscle, returned to the Atlanta lineup on Monday. The 35-year old slugger, who leads the majors with a .453 batting average, singled in the sixth to extend his hitting streak to 13 games.