Wildly eventful bottom of the eighth leads Nationals to victory

They had, as Ryan Zimmerman put it, "played 15 innings of terrible baseball over the last day and a half," leaving themselves in the precarious position of losing two straight to the Brewers without so much as scoring a run.

But then Daniel Murphy lofted a seventh-inning pitch from Jimmy Nelson over the right field fence, and now at least the Nationals were on the board, trailing Milwaukee by only one run. And then - well, let's just say the bottom of the eighth tonight on South Capitol Street was mildly eventful.

It featured, in order: a bad bunt, a chopper just over the first baseman's head for a double, a game-tying single from a young player placed in a key situation, a Bryce Harper meltdown and ejection over a borderline strike call, a clutch Zimmerman double to give his team the lead, Wilmer Difo tripping over himself between third and home but still improbably scoring, then four insurance runs via three straight two-out hits to cap a seven-run rally.

"We were due," said manager Dusty Baker, whose club turned that seven-run eighth into an 8-5 victory. "We'd been shut out for like 16 innings, which is hard to do against this club."

Indeed, the Nationals lineup rarely had been held in check the way it was through the majority of the last two nights. As frustrating as that was, though, it also left this group confident it could spring to life the way it ultimately did.

Key at-bats came in droves during the game-winning rally. Matt Wieters' leadoff walk set the tone and sent Nelson to the showers. Adrian Sanchez's poorly executed bunt could have been damaging, but Brian Goodwin picked him up with the aforementioned double over Jesus Aguilar's head. And then Difo's single through the right side of the infield brought the crowd of 35,296 to life and tied the game at 2-2.

"I feel like I've been doing a pretty job lately in those same situations, and that's why he's been able to trust me," Difo said via interpreter Octavio Martinez. "And I'm very happy and elated that he trusts me in that situation."

Difo's adventures were just beginning, but first came what looked like a critical mistake by Harper. Facing left-hander Josh Hader, Harper took a 1-0 pitch at the knees. Home plate umpire Chris Segal (a Burke, Va., native) called the borderline pitch a strike and Harper immediately threw his right arm down and screamed with displeasure at Segal.

That reaction might have gotten Harper ejected on the spot, but Segal let it go for the moment. Trouble was, Harper didn't let it go. He swung at the next two pitches, one of them a foot out of the zone, and upon striking out let out another scream that did get him ejected.

"I didn't really yell at him," Harper claimed of his reaction to the final strike. "I just yelled because I was mad that I struck out and he tossed me. I don't know why he tossed me. I don't know if he tossed me because I kicked the dirt, or he thought I was yelling at him. But at that point, I was not trying to yell at him. I was just pretty fired up about striking out in a big situation like that."

Harper was cheerful after the game - no doubt the final score made that possible - and suggested he was too emotional all night after listening to Logic and Chance the Rapper before the game in the clubhouse.

"I guess it got me a little too fired up," he said. "I guess I need to mix in some Temptations and some of those jazz bands to calm me down a little bit."

Whether you believe Harper's tirade was justified or not, there's no debating it left the Nationals in a precarious situation. The game was now tied, with runners on the corners, but there were two outs. And recently promoted rookie Andrew Stevenson was the lone outfielder remaining on the bench to take Harper's spot in the ninth inning of an undecided ballgame.

Give Zimmerman credit, then, for delivering the clutch hit that saved Harper from significant embarrassment. Facing right-hander Jared Hughes, the Nats cleanup man poked a double down the right field line, easily scoring Goodwin and easily scoring Difo - if not for the fact the latter tripped over himself about 40 feet shy of the plate and landed face-first on the ground. In spite of that, he still managed to get back on his feet and beat the relay throw to the plate.

Asked what happened, Difo (who is still mastering English) replied: "Sniper."

"I fell," he later said in Spanish. "But I said I'm not going to surrender. I'm going home. They have to kill me there. And that's what I was thinking. I didn't surrender."

Neither did the Nationals. They added to Zimmerman's two-run double with (following Murphy's intentional walk) an RBI single by Anthony Rendon, a two-run double by Adam Lind and an RBI double by Pedro Severino (who had entered the game earlier that inning to pinch-run for Wieters).

Afterward, players were good-naturedly giving Harper credit for waking up what had been a lifeless ballclub for the better part of two nights.

"Everybody said: 'Way to fire us up,' " Harper said. "So I guess I was able to do that."

Did Harper's ejection, a display of emotion that could have severely hampered his team's chance of winning the game, actually fire the Nationals up and help them win in the end?

"Heck, yeah," Murphy said. "I'd say so."