Nolasco's arm, bat lead Marlins past Nationals

MIAMI (AP) -- Ricky Nolasco was happy to put two bad starts behind him.

The 23-year-old right-hander allowed one earned run over seven innings and drove in two runs as the Florida Marlins beat the Washington Nationals 4-2 on Monday night.

Nolasco (7-6) gave up five hits and struck out four for his first win in three starts.

"I was keeping my fastball down in the zone and I had a good breaking ball and changeup," Nolasco said. "I had good command."

Nolasco was 0-2 in his last two starts with an ERA of 25.41, including a 9-1 loss to Washington in which he gave up eight runs (seven earned) over four innings on July 3. He is coming off an outing where he went 1 2-3 innings in a 17-3 loss to the New York Mets on July 8 in which he gave up six hits and a career-high nine earned runs.

"It happens and I learn from it and get over it," Nolasco said. "You can't keep that in the back of your mind. When you have outings like that it just makes you hungrier to get back out there. I know I'm better than that."

Tony Armas Jr. (6-5) gave up four runs and five hits in five innings. He walked two and struck out four.

"I didn't get the result I wanted but I got out there and threw some quality pitches," Armas said. "I made a mistake (against Nolasco) and I paid for it. I threw him some good sliders. That one just stayed up. What can I say?"

Armas was recalled from his rehabilitation assignment and reinstated from the 15-day disabled list earlier Monday. The 28-year-old Armas, who had a strained right forearm, threw 92 pitches before being relieved by Micah Bowie.

"Overall, he pitched pretty good," Nationals manager Frank Robinson said. "There was still the high pitch count. He couldn't go deep. You always look lifeless when you're not putting people on base. We just couldn't put anything together."

Taylor Tankersley pitched a scoreless eighth for Florida and Joe Borowski worked the ninth for his 18th save in 20 opportunities.

Florida went ahead 4-1 with a three-run fourth inning. Mike Jacobs led off with a double and scored on Jeremy Hermida's one-out single. With two outs, the Marlins loaded the bases with a single and a walk and Nolasco drove in two with a line drive single over second base.

"It was a short slider over the plate and I just tried to stay over the middle with it," Nolasco said.

Washington closed to 4-2 in the seventh with an unearned run. Nick Johnson reached second on a two-base error when right fielder Hermida couldn't hang on to a fly ball. He moved to third on a fly caught by Hermida in foul territory and scored on Jose Guillen's single.

The Marlins took a 1-0 lead in the first on Hanley Ramirez's leadoff homer over the scoreboard in left. It was his second home run in two days and third leadoff homer of the season.

"It was a curveball and I got a good swing on the ball and got on top of it," Ramirez said. "I'm just trying to get on base."

The Nationals tied the game in the fourth on Felipe Lopez's 10th homer of the season and first as a National. Lopez was acquired in a trade with Cincinnati on July 13.

Game notes
To make room for Armas, C Matt LeCroy was designated for assignment. ... Nationals 2B Jose Vidro left the game in the fourth inning with a slight left hamstring strain and is listed as day-to-day. He was replaced by Marlon Anderson. ... Washington's Ryan Zimmerman extended his hitting streak to 16 games. ... The Marlins have homered in 13 of 15 games in July and have 20 home runs this month. ... Jacobs has an 11-game hitting streak.