{"id":572890,"date":"2026-03-29T21:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T21:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/572890\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T21:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T21:49:12","slug":"nationals-take-opening-series-in-chicago-with-6-3-win-over-cubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/572890\/","title":{"rendered":"Nationals take opening series in Chicago with 6-3 win over Cubs"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO — – Joey Wiemer<\/a> and Keibert Ruiz<\/a> homered and the Washington Nationals<\/a> earned a season-opening series win with a 6-3 victory over the Chicago Cubs<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Jake Irvin<\/a> (1-0) allowed two runs and three hits with seven strikeouts and a walk in five innings and Clayton Beeter<\/a>, the last of four Washington relievers, worked a clean ninth for his first save. Washington took two of three in the series.<\/p>\n

Alex Bregman<\/a> hit two solo home runs – his first since joining the Cubs as a free agent – and Ian Happ<\/a> added one.<\/p>\n

Brady House<\/a> and Daylen Lile<\/a> hit consecutive two-out singles off Shota Imanaga<\/a> (0-1) in the first and Wiemer followed with his second homer of the season to give Washington a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Imanaga also gave up Wiemer’s leadoff triple in the fourth, but stranded him there with three straight outs. Wiemer was 3 for 3 with a walk.<\/p>\n

Ruiz added a two-run homer off reliever Hoby Milner<\/a> in the eighth.<\/p>\n

Bregman, who signed a five-year, $175 million contract in January, hit a solo shot to center to start the fourth and Happ added his second of the season two pitches later to make it 3-2.<\/p>\n

Bregman added an eighth-inning solo shot to right field off Cionel P\u00e9rez.<\/p>\n

Imanaga was pulled after walking the leadoff man in the sixth. He gave up six hits and four runs while walking two and striking out seven.<\/p>\n

Winnipeg Jets forward Jonathan Toews, who captained the Chicago Blackhawks to three Stanley Cups, threw out the ceremonial first pitch.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Nationals: at Phillies where Washington’s Foster Griffin<\/a> faces Philadelphia’s Taijuan Walker<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

Cubs: host Angels. Ryan Johnson<\/a> starts for Los Angeles against Chicago’s Edward Cabrera<\/a> on Monday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO — – Joey Wiemer and Keibert Ruiz homered and the Washington Nationals earned a season-opening series win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":572891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[281040,64,63,5158,794,591,85,5264],"class_list":{"0":"post-572890","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-281040","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-chicago-cubs","12":"tag-espn","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-washington-nationals"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/572891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}