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Originally Posted by Howard Fendrich
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's safe to say Florida's Fredi Gonzalez enjoyed his first game as a big league skipper far more than Washington's Manny Acta did.
Miguel Cabrera homered into the upper deck and drove in four runs, and Hanley Ramirez collected four hits to back Dontrelle Willis and lead the Marlins over the Nationals 9-2 Monday.
Gonzalez (Cuba) and Acta (Dominican Republic) were the first pair of managers born outside the United States to make their major league debuts in the same game, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
Speaking in the visiting dugout before the game, Gonzalez said he couldn't remember whether he won his debuts as a manager in the Marlins' minor league system in 1992 or as a major league third-base coach with the Marlins in 1999.
Odds are, he'll remember this win. Yet while Gonzalez, who took over for NL Manager of the Year Joe Girardi, could enjoy pretty much every moment of the nearly cloudless, 76-degree afternoon, Acta's first game since replacing Frank Robinson went about as badly as possible.
The closest thing Washington has to an established starter, John Patterson, left after giving up six runs over 3 2-3 innings. And two starting position players -- a quarter of the regular lineup -- were gone by the end of the fifth inning with injuries: shortstop Cristian Guzman (left hamstring) and center fielder Nook Logan (left foot).
Logan got caught in the padding of the wall while making a running, leaping catch on Dan Uggla's fly ball in the fourth. Guzman departed after limping while running to first on a groundout the next inning.
So Acta's day could be summed up by a five-minute span during the fourth inning. First, he jogged to the deepest part of the park to check on Logan, who was sitting near the warning track being examined by a trainer. Shortly after making the long trek back to the dugout, Acta was coming out again, this time to lift Patterson (0-1) right after he allowed Cabrera's two-run homer that made it 6-0.
Uggla reached the upper deck, too -- a rarity at RFK Stadium, the cavernous former home to baseball's Senators and football's Redskins that the Nationals will leave for a new park after this season -- with a two-run homer off reliever Micah Bowie in the seventh.
There were plenty of strong performances for the Marlins.
Cabrera went 3-for-4 with a two-run double plus two walks. Ramirez scored four runs, stole two bases and had two doubles and two singles to match his career high for hits in a game; he did it twice in 2006, when he edged Washington third baseman Ryan Zimmerman for the NL Rookie of the Year award. Center fielder Alejandro De Aza singled and tripled in his major league debut.
Willis (1-0) allowed one earned run and seven hits in six innings, leaving after 100 pitches.
About the only bright spot for Washington was Zimmerman, who tripled, singled and made two neat defensive plays -- throwing out a batter from the seat of his pants after slipping while fielding a bunt, and stretching over a rail to reach into the photographers' camera well to make a catch.
Zimmerman's triple sailed over right fielder Joe Borchard, who stumbled and lost his glove as he tried to chase the ball.
Notes
De Aza wore No. 7, the first Marlins position player with that number since Ivan Rodriguez in 2003. ... It was the first opening day game in Washington since 1971. The Senators left for Texas at the end of that season, and baseball didn't return to the city until the Montreal Expos moved in 2005. The Nationals began the past two seasons on the road. Instead of a presidential ceremonial first pitch, though, Acta was joined by Mayor Adrian Fenty, two former Senators players and the grandson of Senators pitcher Walter Johnson.
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