base hit. top of the hour, 5:00 back at the nation's capital and hope you're having a wonderful sunday afternoon. the nats and rockies have tied up in the 7th. rockies have won four of the first seven. nats are trying to hold on and win and make it a 4 and 3 road trip heading into st. louis to of the 18 wins were against the national league east. i don't know who made the schedule out this year but

rockies are pretty happy they did. >> bob: 1 and 2 against central and 7 and 8 against their own division. demonday seems to really pump up and attack -- desmond seems to really jump up and attack. >> i like him to burn it down low. >> bob: that's off the end of the bat and the inning started off and unravels because of the bunt that was not executed by the leadoff man having a hard time making contact. a crowd well over 45,000 here today. francis is battling his way through 7 innings in a 1-1 ball

game. announcer: please rise as we honor our veterans with god bless america. mark israel will sing "god bless america." (god bless america being sung)

>> bob: tulowitzki is helping with pinch hitting today. tulowitzki, leadoff double in the 2nd and fly ball to center

in the 4th. that's down and in and suddenly late in the ball game, olsen is finding a strike out touch, 3 of the last 4. >> you love your pitcher to get

stronger as the game is going on and olsen is getting better and better with every start. really finding his off speed stuff later in the game. he's struck out 3 of the last 4 guys.

tough decision now hitting 95 pitches. this guy has earned a spot in this series. >> olsen is getting better. 1 on with 1 out.

quickly 0-2. changeup followed by a outside fastball. i would like to see this guy beat us away. he keeps throwing inside stuff and it's killing us. we'll see how good he is hitting

it to right field. that's off the end of the bat for gonzalez. runners at 1st and 2nd now with 1 out. you're committed to olsen because i don't see slaten or

burnett up. good pitch. stewart is 0 for 2.

these guys grounded out and they are tough outs. >> they are to stop trying to hit the ball a long way and try to put the ball in play in a close game like this. now he needs to make a pitch right here. he is going to get a ground ball. they have had the 2-1 could and it's really changed the inning and might be in the dugout already if not for that.

he's been hitting the spots all day and done a great job using all three pitches again. 2-2 count with the 1 out.

bodily harm could be the last hitter for olsen -- barmes could be the last hitter for olsen. 2-2 delivery. he broke his bat. >> another great pitch that jammed him. left fielder is way out there and they are staying out in right field and you may be able to find guzman. there he is. hey, christian, come on in here buddy. we have a game going on. i would suspect this to be his

last inning in the 8th. again, finding the fair ball and it's going to back up willingham and the wind is pushing that ball toward the corner for the 2nd out. now it's olsen to face the right-handed batter. evidently not. scott olsen will give the nationals 6 and 2/3rds today. a very good hitting colorado team. 5th in the league in batting average and in runs.

a good job by scott olsen. [ laughs ] [ male announcer ] achievement has its own patch of grass.

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battle. maybe the biggest at-bat of the day. it took him 7 pitches to get that fly ball. it's now clippard against barmes, your typical right-hitter. we saw clippard get away from the changeup more and throw the ball harder. they often say the hitter will tell you how you're going. >> this is one of the bad stats. you want to be at 80% and he's at 40%. he's only stranded 8 of 20.

there's a swing. nothing like a changeup in on the right hander. >> bob: that's closer than we thought. >> much closer than up here. nice job. challenges him in the fastball after getting the 0-2 and morgan is there to put it away. we're rallying in the 7th. guzman, zipperman and willingham coming up at the top of the 8th. with efficiency. this is an interior that exceeds even the promise of the exterior.

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mmerman and willingham coming up at the top of the 8th. we'll get you going at 7:30 with with nats extra presented by your ford dealers. lannan and carpenter will be on tuesday night. does the pharpb turns around to bat left-handed -- guzman turns around to bat left-handed. dunn is on the bench. i don't know if he's available but i see him by the fence. guzman is already extended the hitting streak to 10 games today and coming alive hitting .250. there's adam who wants to be in the lineup today by got to the ball park not feeling well this

morning. 1 ball, 1 strike. that's hit into left field for a base hit.

zimmerman is happy to see a right hander in the there. you take guzman out and put bernadina in. one fly ball to right field could decide the game. unlike you i am surprised they didn't pitch guzman here. >> bob: another strike. this game has not retired switchers by managers. it looks like rogers is ready to

go. francis and olsen were 1 pitch apart in their outings today. 1 pitch. 0-2 to zimmerman. he has to be hacking. olsen throw 106 pitches, 67 strikes, francis is 107 pitches and 67 strikes. >> they are both really in tune. francis started the game in december 2008 and that was his last game. olsen has done a great job too. someone has to score runs.

0-2 to zimmerman again. ryan breaks his bat hitting to left side and that was close to pulling off the bag. and it will be a runner at 1st with 1 out and willingham coming up. zimmerman has busted at least a half dozen bats in this series. >> ryan is always hustling. got to 1st base well. christian was going in there hard. willingham is 0 for 1 with a pair of walks.

maybe zimmerman doesn't want to burn bernadina with the bat there. he's going to use the situation to hit. >> bob: yeah, it's not like you're going to put something on 1st base to try to steal the way olivo has been throwing. nationals came to town with 21 steals. that was 4 games ago. it's a ball and a strike to willingham. >> bob: you know, it's not like a big bulky chest protecter either. a lot of guys have a shoulder piece right there.

he doesn't have that. that's a good take. there's the 1 hit that will leave the ball park against this pitcher. that ball is popped up in the right side. barmes foul ground, 2 outs. you can win a vip baseball trip, it's all in the preparation at chillies.com. all right.

there's the huge area right there. rodriguez has 9 doubles and a homer this year. 15 rbi. 1 for 3 today. 1 for 11 here in colorado.

you saw beimel retire two hitters last night. morgan and harris and he's warmed up again today. tracy may have talked about getting the pieces back to his ball club. he got hammel back last night wo gave him 7 innings and francis gave him 7 innings today.

count stays 1 and 2. a couple of starters have been done and francis was lost all of that year. tomorrow will be the key for the rockies checking out francis and how he feels after 100 pitches. >> bob: 1 and 2. that's way outside with a curve ball and he struck him out. the nats are having a hard time generating any offense at 1st field today. pitchers have been great on both teams. of beer to accompany that. we brew octoberfest, winter lager, noble pils, and right now, there's summer ale. [ bob ] samuel adams summer ale is a flavorful wheat beer. it has a very nice spice note. [ tim ] it has a little lemon zest

and a historic brewing spice called grains of paradise. -it's citrusy. -lemon. -flavorful. -refreshing. -wow. [ man ] sam adams summer ale -- there's just something about it. it's like, totally reminds you of summer, you know?

>> bob: brilliant pitching on the part of both ball clubs today. francis and olsen both over 100 pitches and pitching in the 7th inning. >> olsen did a fantastic job today. 7-pitch stand off with stewart .

smith will bat for olivo. 27 year-old outfielder and 2nd round draft choice back in '04. 2 and 0.

changeup floats in there. top of the order, next gonzalez and spilborghs for the rockies and they have fowler and giambi on the bench. not even close there.

coming into this game today the nationals struck out 217 batters this year and walked 147. >> i would like to see how many of those 147 scored. >> bob: yeah. >> you try to not give up any homeruns or make any solo. >> bob: guzman charged the ball well and a base hit by gonzalez and the rockies can push the lead run to 3rd base. >> gonzalez has been held to just one single today.

spilborghs there. 2 men on and nobody out. four sacrifice bunts on the year. that ball is hit off the plate. rodriguez picked it up. so i made that thud of a sound.

fowler does a nice job of bending the knee and getting down and gets it off the plate and bunt checks 3rd and makes the play to 1st base and now clippard has to pitch his way out of the jam. >> they have the option to pass hawpe here and take on tulowitzki, the right-handed batter. setting up a force at every base or a double play, of course. you think that would make

rodriguez to make sure everyone is on the same page on how they are going to attack hawpe. they might put him on, no. that looked like a hard slider.

there's another changeup. there's the slider with tight little cuts right at the end. it's like a backdoor slider. 80 miles per hour. he threw the heck out of that. they got that ball up.

smith walked and gonzalez to single and fowler pushed them up with the bunt. a ball lifted to the left field line and will give the rockies the lead. colorado leads it, 2-1. >> bob: it was the changeup up in the soep and all hawpe did was put it out in left field. -- in the zone and all hawpe did was put it out in the left field. here's tulowitzki now with the

runner at 2nd and 2 outs. the rockies have the lead for the first time today. olsen has been up all day. clippard walked the 2nd man he faced and it's cost him here in the 8th. great speed at 2nd base by gonzalez. the first two guys have been the most dangerous today.

3 and 1 now.

three changeups in a row and tulowitzki is trying to hit it a mile high here. >> wow. look at that. >> bob: 3-2 pitch with 2 outs. gonzalez's 2nd. the error hurts and now the rockies have the chance to give the nats the 1st 3-game losing streak in a year. 9th is coming up.

and i don't fowler stays in and plays center field and that moves gonzalez over to left.

morris, gonzalez will be hit for by kennedy and here's harris to hit for morris. corpas game in and got his first save of the night and he was their closer before. harris pops it up. nice try by stewart.

kennedy is on the on-deck circle and another spot in which the pinch hit is after that. >> bob: harris is done, 1st of the night. corpas has good off speed stuff and he has the slider changeup.

adam dunn makes his appearance here in the on-deck circle. >> kennedy is 0 for 2 as a pinch hitter. >> we need base runners. any way you can, mr. kennedy. little fly ball, left field. falling into the glove of gonzalez, 2 outs.

bill woods in the studio for nats extra and standing by to see what happens here with adam dunn. adam dunn's homered twice in this series and upper deck, right field and towering fly ball yesterday.

the rockies shut down the nationals offense three days in a row after the explosion on thursday night. the nationals home run streak is over and they have lost 3 in a row for the first time this year and will go to st. louis 2 games over 3 this year. 2 hours and 40 minutes for the ball game. >> well, brad hawpe, great job right there waiting out clip pardon and driving to the outfield. he hits about .375. this is the 4th drive of the game. clippard is the loser and we'll

be back with more.

tough lose for the nats today, they lose 2-1. a great pitching outing by olsen and great pitching by francis. great pitchers dual. the rain out did the area good for this series. >> thank you, johnny and thank you, ray. yeah, the nats got the only run early and couldn't generate anything after the third hit of the game when they led 1-0. we'll get you going at 7:30 p.m. this has been a presentation of masn. stay tuned now. nats extra coming up next from the booth in colorado. so long.

welcome everybody. it's the nats postgame. first time this year, the nats have lost two consecutive ball games, 2-1. they were not able to move the runner up and fowler got the job done for the colorado rockies moving the runners into scoring position with the sacrifice slide. >> go back to the nationals 7th and here we are in the 7th inning, and this is fowler putting down the bunt and it's a

good bunt put out at 1st base and hawpe comes to the field and 2-1 at that point and of course the nats 3 outs left and couldn't do it in the top of the 9th inning. >> olsen is 6 and 2/3. guzman gets a couple of base hits. francis goes 7 and first start since 2008. and tulowitzki goes 1 for 4 with a run scored and a double but the nationals lose 2-1. take a look at the up to the minute standings now in the national league east, the phillies have a 3-game lead over washington. the mets will come to town this week. so chance to make up some

ground. when they get back home, it's two games to go for st. louis tomorrow night. >> it's extremely important because they want to come back home on a high note after losing 3 straight in colorado. 3 and 5 is not way they wanted it to go and would have liked the split here in colorado but the point is they are in all of these games. they are getting amazing performances from guys you didn't count on when the last season ended when this season got started. whether it's olsen or hernandez, this is a pitching staff and starting rotation that seems to be much better than we thought it would be without the free agent signing. >> you lose a ball game 2-1, 5th time this year the nats have come close but lose a 1-run game. >> that's what separates the good teams from the mediocre.

>> once they get it back, look out. >> they have to be encouraged by the performance from francis today. >> jim, it's a matter of a bunt here and a sacrifice here is the difference in this game! yeah. well, we didn't get it done. it comes down to that. but, you know, i am proud of our guys. they play hard every night and we were getting after it. they ran into a guy, francis, that made it tough on us. he had a great changeup today and had us off balance. you know, we couldn't get anything on. >> jim, in mid march, could you have seen scott olsen having this kind of start to his season? >> no. you know, he was really not anything close to this at that time, and he got a little better every time out from early march to the end of march but, you

know, the jumps were a little small at a time. but by the end of the spring, he was throwing pretty good. >> you had morris in the lineup today and he got a couple of hits and so did guzman. >> yeah, you know, we got a lot of guys that can play a lot of positions. it's a great group to manage. just really a good group to manage. you agonize with them when they lose because they are getting after it as good as you can ask them! thank you for your time, jim. we'll talk to you in st. louis tomorrow and tuesday night. >> thank you, john and phil. >> all right. 2-1 loss to the rockies. you can't fault this ball club for giving it their best shot every time they were on that field. >> about an hour ago i spoke with jim with the mets and o's, and he said the nationals

clubhouse is the talk of the ball club and how the players care about each other. we can't look at them as a chronic second division club. it's a club that's playing together extremely well and getting better starting pitching than anyone imagined. >> let's go back to colorado before they head to st. louis. bob and rob, tough loss today, guys. >> bob: yeah, johnny. it's tough to take and you hit it on the head a moment ago. the nats are in all of these ball games. they are a bunt or a base hit away from winning these games. and rob, the offense only generates 6 runs after that big time explosion on thursday night. you have to give colorado credit, those guys did the job against a really good washington lineup. a lot of people are counting the nationals out and i thought