Gerardo Parra homered for the second straight night, his second-inning grand slam keying a nine-run Washington Nationals second, in a 10-7 win over the Cleveland Indians on Saturday.
The win clinches home-field for Washington (92-69) in Tuesday’s NL wild-card game, though it is still unsettled who the Nats will be playing, with St. Louis and Milwaukee still battling it out to see who will win the NL Central.
That one could come down to the final day of the regular season on Sunday, if not a possible playoff game on Monday preceding the wild-card game.
The Nationals have now won seven straight and nine of their last 10, but there was some room for concern in this one. Patrick Corbin, staked to the 9-0 lead after two, didn’t make it out of the fifth, giving up six runs on seven hits in four and a third innings, including getting taken deep three times.
And then Sean Doolittle, recently being worked into his usual ninth-inning role, gave up a run in the ninth, on a solo shot to Jordan Luplow, his second homer of the game.
Joe Ross (3-4, 5.90 ERA) gets the start for Washington in the regular-season finale, facing Cleveland starter Mike Clevinger (13-3, 2.39 ERA).
Story by Chris Graham
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