Washington, DC (Sports Network) - Jose Guillen's single in the fifth inning scored David DeJesus with the only run of the game, as the Kansas City Royals defeated Stephen Strasburg and the Washington Nationals, 1-0, in the finale of a three-game interleague series.
Stephen Strasburg Great Again, But Royals Keep Nationals Off Board In 1-0 Win
Guillen finished with two hits and extended his hitting streak to 18 games, while DeJesus also had a pair of hits for Kansas City, which snapped a five- game slide.
Brian Bannister (7-5) earned the win for surrendering only five hits, two walks while striking out four in six innings of work. Joakim Soria notched his 17th save of the season with a perfect bottom of the ninth.
Adam Dunn had two of the six hits for the Nationals, who, despite winning the series, have dropped seven of nine.
Strasburg (2-1) was saddled with his first major league loss in making his fourth career start. The rookie right-hander worked six innings, allowing one run on nine hits and fanning nine without issuing a walk. He threw 95 pitches, 75 for strikes.
The former No. 1 overall pick lowered his earned run average to 1.78 and has now struck out 41 batters in 25 1/3 innings this season.
Strasburg pitched out of trouble in the second, third and fourth innings. Then in the fifth, he gave up two-out singles to DeJesus and Billy Butler to put runners on the corners before Guillen's base hit to right scored DeJesus with the only run.
Washington threatened in the home half, putting runners on first and third with nobody out, but Bannister settled down to retire the bottom three hitters in the lineup and keep it a 1-0 game.
The Nationals were denied a run in the sixth when Dunn singled to right and Guillen threw out Roger Bernadina at home plate.
Robinson Tejeda took over for Bannister and tossed a perfect bottom of the seventh, then gave up a two-out single to Bernadina in the eighth. After Bernadina stole second, Ryan Zimmerman went down on strikes to end the inning.
In the bottom of the ninth, Soria came on and retired the side in quick order to polish off the win.
Despite the loss, the Montreal Expos/Nationals franchise have won seven of the nine matchups between the teams, including all three contests at Olympic Stadium back in 2002...KC improved to 113-131 in interleague action, while the Nationals fell to 117-127.
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