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Haren, Diamondbacks blank Nationals again

Jun 2, 2008 - 12:04 AM PHOENIX (Ticker) -- Dan Haren picked right up where teammate Brandon Webb left off.

Haren tossed seven scoreless innings and Orlando Hudson hit his second homer in three days to help the Arizona Diamondbacks register their second straight shutout, 5-0, over the Washington Nationals on Sunday afternoon.

On Saturday, Webb recorded his eighth career complete-game shutout en route to a 4-0 win against Washington.

Haren (6-4) yielded just four hits and struck out five to go along with three walks. The righthander has been impressive at Chase Field, improving to 6-1 at home on the season.

"I'm happy with the way I threw the ball, but I'm more happy with the way the team has played the last couple of days," Haren said. "(Webb) came out (Saturday) and did what an ace is supposed to do, all of us look up to him and he came out and set the tone, he took it upon himself to end what we were going through, and hopefully we've taken the next step.

"I just tried to continue with the momentum we had from (Saturday), we scored a few runs early and I was able to just settle in and throw strikes."

Relievers Chad Qualls and Tony Pena both pitched one scoreless frame to complete Arizona's first pair of consecutive shutouts since doing so from May 26-27, 2006.

After Nationals starter Shawn Hill (0-2) surrendered two straight singles to open the contest, Hudson belted a three-run shot which gave Haren all the support he needed.

"(Hudson's) had a great homestand, been pretty consistant the whole season, with some power too," Arizona manager Bob Melvin said. "Now, he has a propensity to take the ball the other way, especially the fastball, then when you throw him a breaking ball, he ends up pulling it and doing some damage to right center, so he has a good approach right now."

The 27-year-old Haren held Washington's Nos. 1-5 hitters to a combined 1-for-13 with four strikeouts.

"Actually, (Haren) made us play catch up ball from the get go, which the way we are swinging the bats is not a good thing, and having a guy like Haren in front of you made it very tough, but that's all they need basically because our offense couldn't get anything going against him," Washington manager Manny Acta said.

Hudson is so impressive with the entire Arizona pitching staff.

"We've got a couple of aces on our pitching staff, period, not just (Webb), not just Haren, We got Doug Davis, we've got Micah, we got Randy (Johnson) and the bullpen," He said. "They've been doing a heck of a job for us. Lately we haven't been scoring runs, getting the big hits, but for the last two days we've been doing a pretty good job."

Hill's wild pitch in the second frame allowed Chris Snyder to score, and Chad Tracy stroked his second homer in the series as the Diamondbacks went ahead, 5-0.

The 6-2 Hill allowed five runs and seven hits through four innings.

"The way we've been swinging, obviously we haven't been putting up a lot of runs, three batters in and three runs down, that's my fault entirely, it's completely unacceptable," Hill said.