Hanley Ramirez continued his hot streak by extending his RBI streak to 10 games as the Florida Marlins beat the Washington Nationals 5-3 on Wednesday. He also scored the go-ahead run in the eighth inning. It was a good night for Cody Ross, too, as he hit his 14th home run and added an RBI single in the eighth for Florida. But Ramirez was the one beaming the most at the end of the game when he said: "You've just got to keep doing your thing. Everything else is going to come."
The Marlins moved within half a game of Philadelphia at the top of the East after Jair Jurrjens allowed his first hit with two outs in the seventh inning to help the Atlanta Braves thrash the reeling Phillies 11-1. "I was just trying to throw strikes and make them get themselves out," Jurrjens said. Matt Diaz had a two-run homer and finished with three hits and Diory Hernandez hit his first major league home run in the six-run fifth.
At Dodger Stadium, Rafael Furcal's eighth inning pinch hit RBI single lifted the West leading Los Angeles Dodgers to a 1-0 win over the Colorado Rockies to finish 29-21 during Manny Ramirez's absence. The slugger was expected to return late last night for the start of a three-game series at San Diego after completing a 50-game suspension for violating Major League Baseball's drug policy.
In Milwaukee, Ryan Church's sixth inning RBI single helped the New York Mets end a five-game losing streak with a 1-0 victory over the Central-leading Brewers, who saw their advantage reduced to just one game after rookie Colby Rasmus hit a homer in the 10th inning to hand the St Louis Cardinals a 2-1 victory over the San Francisco Giants. * With agencies
