The Miami Marlins traveled to Washington, DC for their first series of the season against the NL East foe Nationals. Washington has the best pitching staff in the bigs through the first month of the season, and their starter certainly delivered on Friday night. Ross Detwiler pitched six shutout innings, striking out seven Marlins and handing it over to his bullpen in the 7th.
Trailing 1-0, the Marlins threatened in the top of the 8th. With men on first and second, Hanley Ramirez came to the the plate to face fireballer Tyler Clippard. Hanley got ahead in the count 2-0, but his at-bat, and any chance of a rally, would promptly fall apart there. Clippard blew three straight pitches past Ramirez, who went down swinging and ended the inning.
Carlos Zambrano was a hard-luck loser in his third start of the season. He's had two impressive starts go all for naught now. His former NL rival, and a man who he's plenty familiar with, Rick Ankiel, took him deep to center in the bottom of the third inning. It was Ankiel's first RBI of the season and it was all the Nats would need with the Fish struggling to get anything going on offense. Washington would add an insurance run in the 8th inning to seal the 2-0 win.
The Marlins will look to rebound on Saturday afternoon in Game 2, and they'll have another tall task going up against Washington ace Stephen Strasburg. Ozzie Guillen will counter with Anibal Sanchez.
We'll have plenty more on this series throughout the weekend here on SB Nation Tampa Bay, so keep it locked to this StoryStream for all of the latest news and updates. For more on this and every series for the Marlins, please head over to Fish Stripes. For some perspective from the other dugout, please head over to Federal Baseball, SB Nation's Washington Nationals blog. As always, you can head over to Baseball Nation for more on this and every MLB baseball game.