WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 CJ Abrams and Luis Garc\u00eda Jr. both hit their 20th homers of the season, and the Washington Nationals pounded the Houston Astros 8-2 on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
Foster Griffin (10-2) allowed one run in seven innings for Washington, which took two of three from Houston to move two games over .500. Griffin’s 10 victories are the most for a Nationals rookie since the club moved from Montreal before the 2005 season.<\/p>\n
Brice Matthews had Houston’s lone RBI on a fifth-inning single.<\/p>\n
Garc\u00eda ripped a three-run shot to right-center in the fourth off Houston starter Spencer Arrighetti (7-5). It was the first baseman\u2019s 11th home run in 18 games since June 19.<\/p>\n
Abrams led off the fifth with a blast to right-center to extend the lead to 6-1. The Nationals then loaded the bases on two singles and a walk to chase Arrighetti. Jos\u00e9 Tena followed with an RBI grounder and Keibert Ruiz added a sacrifice fly against reliever Alimber Santa.<\/p>\n
It was plenty of support for Griffin, who tied a career high with nine strikeouts while allowing five hits and no walks. It was the seventh consecutive start in which the 30-year-old allowed just one run. Griffin is 4-0 with a 1.25 ERA in that span.<\/p>\n
The left-hander, who signed a one-year, $5.5 million deal with Washington in December after spending the previous three seasons in Japan, had been tied with John Lannan\u2019s 2008 total for the most victories by a Nationals rookie.<\/p>\n
James Wood and Garc\u00eda walked to open the third. Abrams\u2019 one-out sacrifice fly scored Wood, and Daylen Lile followed with a double to knock in Garc\u00eda.<\/p>\n
Arrighetti allowed eight runs, seven hits and a career-high six walks in four-plus innings.
\nUp next<\/p>\n
Houston RHP Hunter Brown (1-0, 3.38 ERA) faces Texas as the Astros\u2019 trip continues Friday. Washington RHP Zack Littell (7-6, 5.02) starts at home Friday against the New York Yankees.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 CJ Abrams and Luis Garc\u00eda Jr. both hit their 20th homers of the season, and the Washington Nationals pounded the Houston Astros 8-2 on Wednesday night. Foster Griffin (10-2) allowed one run in seven innings for Washington, which took two of three from Houston to move two games over .500. Griffin’s 10 … Continue reading CJ Abrams, Luis Garc\u00eda Jr. both hit their 20th homers as the Nationals rout the Astros 8-2<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1522354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-07-11 03:39:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1522354"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1522355,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522354\/revisions\/1522355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1522354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1522354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1522354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}