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Each month The Nats Blog will announce our Nationals Player of the Month as voted upon by our writers. This award will be determined on quality of performance as well as the impact of that performance.

The month of April was an exciting one for Washington. They had their best start to a season as a franchise since moving to D.C. and finished above .500 in a month for the first time since 2007.

This great start saw several outstanding individual performances. Ivan Rodriguez batted over .400 for the month, playing excellent defense. Ryan Zimmerman supplied some timely hitting and some good power despite injuries. Tyler Clippard posted an April ERA of 0.50 and notched 23 strikeouts in 18 innings pitched.

But of all the great starts for the Nationals, the one that stuck out the most was that of Livan Hernandez. After not signing until late into spring training, Hernandez has supplied four excellent starts for the Nationals, going 3-1 with a 0.87 ERA. Hernandez pitched at least seven innings in each of his starts, recording one shutout and allowing only three earned runs in 31 innings pitched.

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