If you watched Tim Kurkjian last night on ESPN, then you know just how close he came to an on-air myocardial infarction. In the history of the game, he said, what viewers just saw was history — the best night of baseball ever of any regular season. The best, as he repeated, in 200,000 games. In fact, he’s right — it might well have been.
Unless, of course, you’re a fan of either the Boston Red Sox or Atlanta Braves. For both of those clubs, and their fans, the “night to remember” was a belly-up sinking that compared with the loss of the “unsinkable” Titanic: it just wasn’t supposed to happen. Fans will focus on the Red Sox, of course, but down in Atlanta the despair was as keenly felt. You only have so many shots at this, and this may be one of the Braves’ last.
“When you’re in a slump as a team, you find a bunch of different ways to lose,” third baseman Chipper Jones said after the Bravos dropped a nail biter to the Phillies. “Bats go silent. You get wild on the mound. You walk in runs. You find different ways to lose and we sure did over the past couple weeks.”
Okay. But still — the most improbable of improbables was not the Braves loss to Philadelphia (let alone the Redbirds whitewashing of the Astros), or even the fact that somehow the Tampa Bay Rays came back to take a 12 inning victory from the Yankees, but Baltimore’s epic ninth inning walk off victory against the Nation. “Now, there’s something you don’t see every day,” the unsinkable Molly Brown said as she saw the Titanic go down, stern first.
And that’s what we all said, last night, when Robert Andino put a Jonathan Papelbon offering just off the glove of Carl Crawford in left field to score Noland Reimold and give the Orioles (the Orioles!) a walk-off 4-3 win in Baltimore. There’s a reason why fans keep their mouths shut when they’re watching a no-hitter in the ninth, just as there’s a reason why you don’t pitch Tim Wakefield eight times in the middle of a divisional race just so he can get his 200th win. (What the hell were they thinking?)
Here’s some other things you don’t ever do, no matter what. You don’t calculate that you have an inside shot just because the Rays are playing the Yankees, you don’t headline that you have “the best team ever” at the beginning of a season, you don’t describe the Iraqi insurgents as “pushovers” — and you don’t call a ship unsinkable when it’s sitting in Belfast Harbor: you don’t flirt with icebergs.
So . . . so don’t rewrite the rules. They remain, the rules. You don’t tempt fate, which is what the Red Sox did all of September, and it’s what they did last night. It’s call hubris, and it’s been around since Homer. “I’m pretty shocked,” Red Sox arm John Lester said. “Not only with the Rays game, but in our game, we’ve got the best closer in baseball. That stuff doesn’t happen to him.” Oh, c’mon. Sure it does. This is baseball.
The Washington Nationals broke out the lumber at Nationals’ Park on Sunday, spraying twelve hits and hitting back-to-back-to-back home runs to down the visiting Houston Astros, 8-2. The hit parade was led by Ian Desmond, who was 3-5 with two RBIs. Ryan Zimmerman, Chris Marrero and Danny Espinosa claimed two hits each, with Rick Ankiel, Jayson Werth and Laynce Nix each collecting one. The win meant that the Nationals took the series, two games to one.
“I think the nicest thing about all that is we finally had the lead,” Desmond said following the victory. “All series and the last two series, we have been behind and defensive. So today, we all wanted to make sure that we stayed aggressive. We weren’t so passive, giving a pitcher a strike, whatever it may have been. We wanted to make sure we were in the driver’s seat all day. That worked out for us.”
The Nats’ win dampened the headlines that were sure to be dominated by Stephen Strasburg, who pitched three innings — but was taken out by Davey Johnson after throwing 57 pitches. Johnson noted that Strasburg had thrown a lot of pitches in the first inning, and he didn’t want to extend him further: ” I explained to him, ‘I don’t want to [take you out during an inning]. As far, as I’m concerned, it’s like your second time out in Spring Training. That’s enough for me. You are not going to go five.’”
The Nats home run trifecta took place in the third inning, when Ian Desmond hit his eighth homer, Rick Ankiel followed with his ninth and Ryan Zimmerman followed with his 12th. The back-to-back-to-back home runs were the first time the Nationals had accomplished that unique feat since 2009. Once again the Nationals bullpen was superb: Tom Gorzelanny, Sean Burnett and Henry Rodriguez held the Astros scoreless, with Doug Slaten giving up an unearned run in the ninth.
The Wisdom of Section 1-2-9: The by-now traditional end-of-year conversation dominated the talk of the section, nearly from the beginning of the game — determining who would (and who would not), be with the Nationals next year. The yakking started with Rick Ankiel. “Definitely gone,” one opinionated fan said. “What? Seven, eight home runs? We can do better.”
The Washington Nationals won ugly on Friday night, but they won. With two on and one out in the eleventh inning, Jayson Werth hit a bounder to Astros’ third baseman Jimmy Paredes who, in an attempt to get a force out at second, threw the ball into left field. The muff scored Ryan Zimmerman with the walk-off run, giving the Nationals a badly needed, 4-3, bottom of the 11th inning walk off victory.
“Initially, I hit it and I knew there was a potential double play, so I was running hard out of the box,” Werth said following the victory. “I looked to see what happened at second when I didn’t see the ball. I thought it was going to be there. I kept looking, and I saw it go in the outfield. That was that.” The walk-off notched a win for Tyler Clippard — but the victory could have gone to the entire bullpen, which kept the Astros off the board from the 6th inning on.
The botched throw from Paredes lacked the deep-throated dramatics of the Nationals’ usual walk-off triumphs, but the win was welcome: the Nationals had struggled with putting runs on the board of late, and were attempting to recover from a late-game 7-4 pasting at the hands of the Dodgers on Thursday.
Even with the win, the Nationals were able to scatter only six hits off of five Houston pitchers. The lack of offense has been the most disheartening part of an up-and-down season. In the wake of the Houston win on Friday, Nationals’ manager Davey Johnson told the media the problem has kept him awake nights. “I’m used to a little more of a comfort zone,” Johnson said. “With all the young players … it’s been that kind of a struggle. Everybody’s trying to probably do a little too much.”
Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: The clubhouse is crowded with new arrivals, and three of them started the game on Friday. Steve Lombardozzi started at short, Chris Marrero was at first, and Tom Milone was on the mound. The early results are just starting to come in, but here’s what they say: Lombardozzi has not yet mastered major league pitching, Marrero has yet to hit the long ball, and Milone needs to work on getting through a line-up the second time . . .
For those who think that is too negative, there’s this — there doesn’t seem much doubt that Lombardozzi can hit, Marrero’s double last night to left-center was one of the hardest hit non-dinger slaps this year at Nationals’ Park and Milone is absolutely unintimidated by major league hitting . . .
It wasn’t so long ago (the Nationals were playing out in Los Angeles, to be specific) that we wrote about walk-off grand slam home runs. They’re really, really unusual — a walk-off grand slam that results in a single run victory has happened (by our count) just 25 times in major league history. A two out walk-off grand slam is even more unusual. And, as we noted in our previous post, an inside the park walk-off grand slam home run has happened just once.
Which makes last night’s walk-off grand slam off the bat of Brian Bogusevic in Houston (albeit, on a 2-2 and not a 3-2 count, but wouldn’t that be something) even more special. The fact that thousands more watched it live than normally would have (during an MLB “live look-in”) is stunning.
The GWRBI (GS) came off the arm of Chicago reliever Carlos Marmol and sent the fans in Houston into ecstasy, and it was a bomb: Bogusevic scorched the ball to dead center and it hit above the yellow home run line in Minute Maid Park. A shot. The grand slam gave the Astros a 6-5 victory.
That’s five walk-offs in a single night in baseball, equaling the season record of five set back in late May. Still . . . still, the Houston walk-off was the most uplifting (so to speak) and jaw-dropping. Oh, and Bogusevic’s walk-off grand slam was hit by a pinch hitter . . .
Jayson Werth might well have broken out of his season-long slump on Wednesday, as the frustrated right fielder, went 3-5 in accounting for two doubles and a home run (his 11th) — but the Washington Nationals lost in extra innings to the Houston Astros, 3-2 in Houston. The loss means that the Astros took the three game series, and sent the Nationals on to Los Angeles with a 2-4 road trip.
Livan Hernandez turned in a badly needed solid start, after struggling with two bad outings in his last three mound appearances. Hernandez turned in six complete innings, while giving up seven hits and only one walk. But as in previous games, the Nationals’ bats went silent when they were needed most, and the team stranded Werth on second base with the go-ahead run in the top of the 11th.
Aside from the tough loss, which came at the expense of usually reliable reliever Todd Coffey (who put the blame for the loss on his shoulders), the big news of the day was Werth. “I’ve seen really good signs for about a week,” Nats’ skipper Davey Johnson said of Werth. “He’s started to feel a little better. He was a lot more aggressive today. He hit a couple of first-pitch fastballs, which he hadn’t done. He’s probably leading the league in pitches taken. But it’s good to see him get aggressive out there.”
The Nationals have had to play through some tough one run losses, and Wednesday was another example. While Henry Rodriguez was shaky on the mound in relief of Hernandez, Tyler Clippard came in with two Astros’ runners on and nobody out and saved the day — which is becoming standard practice for the All-Star. “It’s tough in a situation like that,” Clippard said after the game. “You try to limit the damage. I made a good pitch to Barmes to make him pop out in the infield. I was able to pound the zone and put my fastball where I wanted to.”
Is Werth out of his slump? While the veteran (who raised his average to .218) wouldn’t say, it’s clear he keeps looking for ways to help the Nats win games. This afternoon presented a perfect, but missed, opportunity. “It seems like all [the one-run games] we lose, we don’t match up,” he said. “We hit when we don’t pitch and we don’t hit when we do pitch.”
This is exactly what the Washington Nationals needed: Jason Marquis pitched eight beautiful innings and the Nats scored three in the ninth to down the Houston Astros, at Minute Maid Park, 5-2. Marquis threw 102 pitches, 69 of them for strikes, as his patented sinker baffled Houston hitters. The win put the Nationals back at .500 — and in third place in the N.L. East.
The Nationals stayed in the game against Houston’s tough young pitcher, Jordan Lyles, by featuring the long ball. Michael Morse hit a soaring shot onto the glass screen in left field in the 5th inning, and Ryan Zimmerman put one into the right field seats in the seventh inning. The Zimmerman homer tied the game. But the 9th inning was key, as the Nationals scored three on singles by Bernadina, Zimmerman and Morse and a Laynce Nix bounder to the right side.
Nationals’ manager Davey Johnson was more than pleased with the Marquis outing, as it not only provided the win, but allowed the team to rest their overused relievers. “I was able to get ahead early,” Marquis said in reflecting on his outing. “I got some quick outs. They were being aggressive. I’ve been feeling pretty good all year. I had a good sinker-slider combo tonight.
Those Are The Details, Now For The Headlines: There are three things that just aren’t gonna happen, no matter how much we talk about them: the apocalypse, the rapture, and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Until this year, we might have added a fourth — the Pittsburgh Pirates winning the N.L. Central. And yet, there they are, atop the scrum that includes semi-powerhouse Milwaukee, perennial favorite St. Louis, and last year’s winner, the Cincinnati Reds.
Rookie and second base phenom Danny Espinosa’s two run homer in the seventh inning provided the Washington Nationals with their second straight victory over the Houston Astros 4-3 on Tuesday night at Nationals’ Park. The Espinosa homer, which came with one on, broke the young rookie’s hitting slump — and provided the Nats with a measure of pride: this was the second win in a row for the team, and it came against a surging Astros’ Nine which has the second best record in the N.L. Central since late July. Jason Marquis provided a strong outing on the mound, throwing six innings and giving up just two runs. “I was consistent early in the count,” Marquis said, following the win. “I controlled the counts and was able to get some quick outs. The defense did a great job. It was definitely nice to get back-to-back wins.” And once again, the Nats bullpen came through — with Doug Slaten (who walked the only batter he faced), Tyler Clippard, Joel Peralta and Sean Burnett closing out the game. Burnett notched his third save.
Will He Stay Or Will He Go: Tom Boswell writes that Stan Kasten is reconsidering his future with the team and is considering resigning his position. The rumor that Kasten is rethinking his employment is so pervasive that it reached into the stands during last night’s game — with one Nats’ watcher saying that Kasten would actually resign his position not just soon, but today. The reason for Kasten’s rethinking, Boswell speculates, is Kasten’s desire to move on to a new challenge, as well as frustration over his continuing skirmishes with team ownership about the tight wad philosophy that has landed the Nats in last place in the N.L. East. “My preference for the Nats’ sake: He stays. My firm opinion: He’s gone,” Boswell writes. There seem to be three possibilities here: Kasten is fed up with the Lerners and wants out, he wants to take on a new job with a different team or (and it’s a distinct possibility), he’s sending a signal to the Lerners that they will either increase payroll or he’s gone. “If Kasten leaves,” Boswell writes, “. . . the Nats’ reputation will take a hit within the industry.” And with the fans.
Lightning In A Bottle: All the oohing and ahhing about the emergence of youngsters Tyler Clippard, Doug Slaten, Sean Burnett and Drew Storen is more than justified; the four relievers have steadied the Nats’ bullpen and provided headlines for a team without a starting rotation. But all the talk of just how good the Clippard-Slaten-Burnett-Storen quartet has been ignores the steady contributions of perhaps the Nats’ most effective middle-innings reliever — Joel Peralta. Last night’s win over the Astros provided a useful antidote, as Peralta was the focus of a MASN post-game interview and in-game praise from the Bob Carpenter-Ray Knight MASN tag team. Peralta has been a wizard, with last night’s outing symbolic of his competence: Peralta gave the Nats 1.1 innings, registering his ninth hold and striking out three. Success has come late for Peralta, who toured the U.S. (Butte, Boise, Cedar Rapids, Salt Lake City, Colorado Springs, and points in between) for several teams before arriving at the Nats’ doorstep at the age of 34. The Nats signed Peralta in the off-season and he was so good at Syracuse that he could no longer be ignored. His numbers are stunning: in 45 innings he’s given up just 27 hits, while fanning 44. Over the last ten games he’s lowered his ERA from 2.57 to 2.00. Which is to say: Peralta’s steady presence means he’s here to stay.
