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Edmonds homers to lift Brewers over Nationals 7-5

Jul 24, 2010 - 4:48 AM MILWAUKEE(AP) -- Jim Edmonds wasn't thinking home run. He just wanted to advance the runner.

Edmonds replaced injured All-Star Corey Hart and hit a tiebreaking, two-run shot in the seventh inning to lift the Milwaukee Brewers over the Washington Nationals 7-5 on Friday night.

"I was just trying to get him (Rickie Weeks) over," Edmonds said. "I was supposed to bunt the first pitch and didn't."

Edmonds then got the signal to swing away, but Weeks made the strategy moot.

"Then Rickie stole second, thank God," Edmonds said. "It just made me concentrate a little bit more. I was just really determined to get him over, and just try to hook a ball to second base. I wasn't trying to do anything else."

Hart hurt his right wrist in the third when he crashed into the wall down the right-field line chasing Cristian Guzman's fly ball that landed foul.

Milwaukee manager Ken Macha and assistant trainer Dan Wright went out to check on Hart, who threw three warmup tosses before finishing the inning. Edmonds pinch-hit for Hart in the bottom of the third.

"I thought when they were doing all the tests out in right field on him, it didn't look that bad," Macha said. "I think he went into the wall and kind of jammed his hand. Where it was located, they were concerned."

While X-rays were negative, Macha said the team didn't wait to do an MRI.

"There's no fracture," the manager said. "He's day-to-day, as we all are."

Michael Morse homered twice and drove in four runs for Washington, which squandered a 5-1 lead.

Edmonds snapped a 5-all tie with his sixth home run in the seventh when he connected off Sean Burnett, the third Nationals reliever. Weeks walked just before Edmonds hit his second home run in three days.

Burnett tipped his hat to Edmonds, but said the free pass to Weeks hurt the most.

"The walk to Rickie Weeks was definitely the low point," Burnett said. "We played a good game for five, six innings and then we let it get away. The bullpen's job is to come in there and shut it down, and we weren't able to do it tonight."

Prince Fielder sliced a double down the left-field line with one out to chase Burnett (0-5). Joel Peralta came on and retired the next two batters.

Kameron Loe (1-1) got the win with two innings of scoreless relief. John Axford pitched the ninth for his 14th save in 14 chances.

Nationals starter Craig Stammen had a bit of trouble in the first, then dominated for three innings.

Hart tripled and scored on Ryan Braun's sacrifice fly in the first, but after that Stammen held the Brewers scoreless until there were two outs in the fifth.

Alcides Escobar singled and scored on pitcher Chris Narveson's broken-bat single. Edmonds knocked in Narveson with a bloop single, cutting it to 5-3.

Stammen struck out three and walked one before Tyler Clippard took over to start the sixth. Clippard failed to protect the lead as the Brewers scored twice with two outs to tie it.

"Their starting pitcher did a great job," Edmonds said. "Don't know why they took him out so early, but he definitely was doing a good job of moving the ball around and keeping people off balance. Sometimes when you can get a guy like that out of the game, things start to look up. That's what happened for us today."

A walk, a triple by Carlos Gomez and a double by Escobar chased Clippard with the score tied at 5. Burnett struck out pinch-hitter Joe Inglett.

Narveson gave up five runs and six hits over six innings. He struck out five.

"The second inning pretty much came down to one pitch," Narveson said of that first pitch he threw to Morse that turned into a three-run homer. "If I could get that one pitch back, I feel like it would have been a really good outing."

Morse homered leading off the fourth as the Nationals pushed the lead to 5-1. It was his first multihomer game in 177 games over two-plus seasons in the majors. His first home run came after Narveson hit Adam Dunn with a pitch and Josh Willingham singled.

NOTES: Washington placed RHP Luis Atilano on the 15-Day disabled List, retroactive to July 21, with bone chips in his right elbow. LHP Ross Detwiler will be called up from Triple-A Syracuse to start on three days' rest Sunday. Nationals manager Jim Riggleman said he hopes Detwiler can go five innings. ... Macha said Major League Baseball was looking into why his team leads the NL in HBPs, including a major league-leading 18 plunkings of Weeks. ... Brewers announcer Bob Uecker returned to the radio booth for the first time since successful heart surgery on April 30. His two doctors, Alfred Nicolosi and Jim Kleczka, each threw a ceremonial first pitch. Uecker joked that was the deal he had to make in order to get behind the microphone.