Inside the Nationals' historic home run barrage

MIAMI - The first home run was a laser off Jayson Werth's bat, a line drive that made a beeline for the gaudy sculpture that sits beyond the fence in left-center at Marlins Park and required some deft work by stadium workers to retrieve. ("Did it lodge in one of the dolphins?" Werth asked later.)

The second home run came before anyone could point out that Werth's blast was the 200th of his career. Wilson Ramos pounced on the very next pitch Adam Conley threw in the top of the seventh, sending a majestic shot high into the air and watching it land not far from Werth's shot moments earlier.

The third home run came five batters later, but it was no less dramatic than the two that preceded it. There's nothing undramatic about a grand slam, certainly not when the man who hit it, Bryce Harper, has now done that twice in six games, sandwiched around three other homers.

The fourth home run came immediately after that. Poor Ryan Zimmerman. All he did was drive a ball to the opposite field for his first homer of the season. It was no small feat, but it was doomed to be lost in the shuffle of the most titanic display of rapid-fire power the Nationals have ever produced.

One inning. Eight batters. Four home runs. And, most importantly, a scoreless game suddenly became a 7-0 lead over the Marlins that stayed that way through the final out.

So, what's it like to be a part of something that wild?

"A lot of fun," Harper said. "As a team, we just kept battling, kept grinding, having good at-bats."

The Nationals have strung together good at-bats before, but never quite like this. This was the first time they homered four times in an inning in club history, only the second time they had done it in franchise history (matching the Expos' comparable feat in 1986).

Even more remarkable about this occurrence: It came after six innings of nothing but zeroes against Marlins left-hander Adam Conley.

"That just shows what we're capable of doing," manager Dusty Baker said. "I've always said once we can get everybody swinging the way they're capable of swinging that we're capable of a lot of those innings. Which goes to show us that we should never be out of a ballgame if we're capable of striking like that."

The barrage was ignited by a guy who needed one of those in the worst way. Werth entered the day hitting .158, having struck out three times the previous night and having struck out again in his most recent at-bat against Conley. But the veteran outfielder battled his way through a six-pitch at-bat, then hammered a 3-2 fastball that clanked off one of the moving waves in the home run sculpture and disappeared into the artwork.

Not a bad way to hit the 200th homer in a career that has been filled with ups and downs.

"There was a time when I didn't think I was going to get to play again," Werth said, referring to the first of several wrist injuries that sidelined him the entire 2006 season. "You cherish these moments and these things. I'm sure when I look back and my playing career's over, they'll mean more. It's a milestone, for sure, and I'm grateful to get the opportunity to even do it. But again, these sort of things, you file them away and then when you're done playing you can really go back and cherish them."

Besides, who has time to cherish anything when there are more homers to be hit? No sooner had Werth crossed the plate than Ramos joined the party, depositing his solo shot a few feet to the left of his teammate's ball.

"I was looking for a good pitch in that situation," Ramos said. "Most of the time, when somebody hits a homer, the next pitch is a fastball. So I was looking for that pitch in that at-bat."

With Stephen Strasburg (eight scoreless innings of three-hit ball) cruising, that would have been more than enough offense for the Nationals. But this night wasn't like all other nights because they just kept on hitting. Strasburg singled to center (his second of the game). Michael A. Taylor doubled to left. And Anthony Rendon drew a two-out walk to load the bases for none other than Harper.

It was only Thursday afternoon when Harper launched the first big league grand slam, which just happened to be his 100th career homer as well. He then homered the next three days in Philadelphia before coming up short in Monday's series opener in Miami. He wasn't going to come up short again.

"I was trying to go deep, to tell you the truth," Harper admitted. "It happened. I got a good pitch to drive and did my job."

Harper now has seven homers and a league-leading 20 RBIs through his first 13 games of a season in which he's trying to somehow improve upon his unanimous MVP performance of 2015. It's not nearly as easy as he's making it appear, but his teammates can't help but watch in awe.

"What he's doing is pretty special," Werth said. "He's really coming into his own. He's arguably one of the, if not the, best players in the game. He's got good guys around him, too, so that helps. I would say last season on into this season, he's been really, really exciting. That's probably an understatement. But I wouldn't have given him that kind of credit early on in his career. But he really is one of the, if not the most exciting players in the game. From where I'm sitting, it's fun to watch."

Nobody had a better view of Harper's latest grand slam than Zimmerman, who was in the on-deck circle and then decided to join the fun himself. The franchise's longest tenured player can now say he was a part of history, helping produce the first four-homer inning in Nationals history.

"I don't know if you sense it, but you just want to keep the line moving," Zimmerman said. "Especially after the first 5-6 innings how we were held down, to have an opportunity, you know that's kind of the game right there. Go out and get a couple of runs, get him out of the game and tack on from there."