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Marlins look for sweep of Nationals, fifth straight win

Sep 14, 2008 - 7:26 AM Washington (56-92) at Florida (76-72), 1:10 pm EDT

MIAMI (Ticker) -- Since the Florida Marlins lost steam in the playoff race, manager Fredi Gonzalez and his young team can start thinking about next season. Thanks to a winning streak, their future still looks rather encouraging.

Looking for their fifth straight victory, the Marlins can wrap up a sweep of the lowly Washington Nationals on Sunday.

Anibal Sanchez (2-4, 6.46 ERA) takes the mound for Florida, which is 7 1/2 games behind the first-place New York Mets (83-64) in the National League East and seven in back of the wild card-leading Milwaukee Brewers (83-65).

Sanchez is coming off a rough outing against the Philadephia Phillies on Monday, when he coughed up five runs and five hits in 1 2/3 frames.

The 24-year-old righthander has given up four or more runs in each of his last four starts.

Washington counters with Collin Balester (3-6, 4.86), who has lost three of his last four decisions.

On Saturday, Hanley Ramirez hit his 30th home run of the season to become the 33rd member of Major League Baseball's exclusive 30-30 club.

Ramirez and Jorge Cantu each homered and Josh Johnson tossed six strong innings to lead Florida to a 4-2 victory.

In the opener, Jorge Cantu homered and Scott Olsen threw six strong innings as the Marlins held on for a 2-1 win.

Cantu's fourth-inning blast off rookie Shairon Martis was his 25th, making the Marlins the first team in major league history to boast four infielders with 25 home runs or more.