The Pirates walk off also overawed a pitchers’ duel that pitted Ahoy starter A.J. Burnett against Washington hurler Edwin Jackson. The two were both stellar in their outings, with Burnett throwing eight innings of six hit baseball, and Jackson hurling seven while holding the Pirates to three hits.
The Barajas home run came after Henry Rodriguez had difficulty in commanding his breaking ball. With Alex Presley on first, Rodriguez threw two curves for wild pitches — which put Presley on third. Rodriguez decided to stick with his fastball, which came in high in the strike zone on Barajas, who parked it in just inside the foul pole in left field. “I tried too hard, as you saw. I missed the spot. I threw wild,” Rodriguez said after the loss. “Just like that, I tried to be too perfect.”
This was the Washington closer’s second blown save of the season, and his second loss. Washington manager Davey Johnson speculated that perhaps Rodriguez needs to be used more, not less. “Maybe Henry had too much rest,” he said. “He usually has good command of his curveball, and that kind of got him in the jam. I still thought he was going to get out of it. Obviously, Barajas knows that he is going to get a fastball. He gets out in front and that’s the ballgame.”
The Natmosphere is almost too stunned by Jayson Werth’s broken wrist to comment on it, or to speculate what it might mean for the ballclub in the weeks ahead. Instead, Washington Nationals’ blogs are focused on a growing controversy over G.M. Mike Rizzo’s call-out of Phillies lefty Cole Hamels, who plunked “the kid” right square in the back during the first inning of last night’s loss. Hamels admitted he’d hit Harper on purpose, which didn’t sit well with Rizzo — or with the D.C. Natmosphere.
Over at Federal Baseball, Rizzo’s comments headlined the day’s Nats’ news, ahead of the loss of Werth. “It was a gutless chicken [bleep] [bleeping] act,” Rizzo said. It seems to us that FB got it right: “With the emotions that ran high all weekend, the beaning, subsequent stealing of home by said 19-year old rookie, and now Rizzo’s public tirade, this rivalry — that has been for the most part one-sided through history — has been elevated to a whole new level.”
Federal Baseball quoted from the original article on Rizzo’s lambasting of Hamels, which appeared under Adam Kilgore’s byline over at WP Sports. Kilgore quotes Rizzo expansively: “Players take care of themselves,” Kilgore quoted Rizzo as saying. “I’ve never seen a more classless, gutless chicken [bleep] act in my 30 years in baseball. Cole Hamels says he’s old school? He’s the polar opposite of old school. He’s fake tough. He thinks he’s going to intimidate us after hitting our 19-year-old rookie who’s eight games into the big leagues? He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.”
For those of you who didn’t see it, here is Bryce Harper’s steel of home last night at Nationals Park, as rendered by ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” and complete with Terry Francona’s question: “you sure this kid’s 19?” You don’t see this very often; hell, I’ve never seen it.
Cole Hamels showed once again why he’s one of the National League’s dominant starters, and Philadelphia’s bats came alive as the Phillies trounced the Nationals 9-3 in front of a national television audience on Sunday night at Nationals Park. Hamels threw eight innings of five hit ball, while the Phils’ line-up rapped out thirteen hits against five Nats’ pitchers.
The Phillies win cemented what is fast becoming one of the National League’s most intense rivalries, with the Philadelphia Nine anxious to win a game after the Nationals took the first two of the series. Hamels paced the Phillies, along with right fielder Hunter Pence, who had a pair of two run home runs.
The highlight for Nationals fans, and the national television audience, was Bryce Harper’s steel of home in the first inning. The steel came when Hamels engineered a pick-off move to first against Jayson Werth. When Hamels threw to first, Harper scampered home, surprising the Phillies defense. Harper paid for his theft: in the third inning Hamels plunked the rookie in the back. Washington starter Jordan Zimmermann retaliated, hitting Hamels in the third.
“I was trying to hit him,” Hamels admitted after the victory. “I’m not going to deny it. I’m not trying to injure the guy. They’re probably not going to like me for it, but I’m not going to say I wasn’t trying to do it. I think they understood the message, and they threw it right back. That’s the way, and I respect it. They can say whatever they want.”
Harper’s steel of home was the one piece of good news on the night, which saw Nationals right fielder Jayson Werth break his left wrist on a play for a bloop single in the top of the 6th. Werth is expected to be sidelined for at least six weeks, and will consult with doctors at the Mayo Clinic today. The injury could be devastating for the Nationals.
Manager Davey Johnson says the Nationals will make-do in replacing Werth, platooning Xavier Nady and Roger Bernadina in left field, and moving Harper to right. But it seems clear that the Nationals, already suffering from a spate of injuries to Ryan Zimmerman, Adam LaRoche and Michael Morse (among others) could well be looking for additional help in the outfield — and at the plate.
There are a lot of things for you to celebrate when you find your team in first place — you can be smugly satisfied when BBTN’s Rick Sutcliffe says he’d rather have your starting rotation than the one up the road (at “the Piggy Bank“), and you can be overjoyed that, for the second day in a row, you have sent the invaders back to Philadelphia defeated.
Sutcliffe has a point: nearly thirty games into the season, the rotation of Strasburg, Gonzalez, Zimmermann, Detwiler and Jackson seems light years better than the once-upon-a-time best rotation in baseball of Halladay, Hamels, Worley and whoever. And today, Mike Rizzo proved once again why he’s one of the smartest G.M.’s in the game — as Gio Gonzalez shut down the Phillies line-up in leading the Nationals to a 7-1 beating of the Phillies at Nationals Parks.
Gonzalez had help from former Pony right fielder Jayson Werth, whose fifth inning home run put the Nationals ahead to stay, 4-1. Werth was near ecstasy after the game, praising the fans and telling them again that the Nationals are “something special.” Werth is clearly happy that the Nationals can not only play with the Phillies, but beat them regularly.
“We are playing good baseball, and we just want to keep that going,” Werth said. “The Phillies are banged up, we’re banged up as well, so it’s a pretty even playing field. They are the reigning NL East champs the last few years. Any time you can get a game from them, it’s good from that standpoint.”
Gonzalez was the game’s pitching star, lowering his ERA to 1.72 while earning his third win. It was undoubtedly his best outing yet: he threw seven complete in holding the Phillies to four hits and one run. Better yet, he struck out seven and only walked one. “He located pretty good,” Phillies outfielder Hunter Pence said of the Gonzalez performance. “He obviously has good stuff to have had the success he’s had. I had some pitches to hit that I just fouled off. That’s baseball. I took a good pass at him, got him one time, he pitched out of it. He has that stuff to get out of jams.”
A clutch Wilson Ramos single in the bottom of the 11th inning with the bases jammed gave the Washington Nationals a triumphant at-home walk-off win in front of nearly 35,000 at Nationals Park on Friday. The win kept the Nationals in first place in the N.L. East at 17-9, ahead of the trailing Phillies, who have struggled out of the gate.
The Strasburg outing struck Nationals fans as unusual, as the nose-in-the-dirt lights-out righty struggled against an anemic but, at least on this night, tenacious Phillies line-up. Strasburg et.al. (relievers Tom Gorzelanny, Craig Stammen, Henry Rodriguez, Tyler Clippard, and newbie Ryan Perry) pitched to Phillies catcher Carlos Ruiz like he was Lou Gehrig.
“I left a couple of pitches up. It’s an adjustment. It was just one of those games where they made me pay for it,” Strasburg admitted. “It was just a couple of pitches. It could have gone differently, whether they decided to swing at them or not.” In fact, Strasburg left at least two pitches “up” — yielding home runs to Hunter Pence and fireplug Ruiz.
For a time in the 11th, it looked as if the Nationals were going to have to fight the Fightin’ Phils deep into the night, but the Nationals put together a mini-rally that added to their spate of 2012 one run victories (they have ten this season) — and their league leading numbers of walk-offs, which is more than any other major league team over the last two years.
The Nationals rally took place with two outs: Steve Lombardozzi singled, Bryce Harper induced a walk (after starting 0-2), Jayson Werth walked to load the bases, and pinch hitter Wilson Ramos stroked a two strike offering into center, scoring Lombardozzi with the winning run.
“You have a bigger feeling when you play the Phillies,” Nats’ manager Davey Johnson said following the game. “I felt they were the best team in baseball last year. To beat them the first time in our house, it was a big game for us. I’m sure the Phillies felt the same way, because we are sitting on top. It was fun.” The Nationals will face off against against the Phillies this afternoon at Nationals Park.
The Wisdom Of Section 1-2-9: The “Our Park” promotion seemed to work. Phillies fans were in evidence, but not in the Kasten-induced bus-huge numbers of previous years. But the real difference for the home crowd had little to do with actual numbers of the Philadelphia faithful, and a lot more to do with the Philadelphia offering on the field. These are not the Phillies of 2010 . . .
A clot of Phillies’ fans inevitably found their way to Section 1-2-9, but they were subdued. “Do you think this guy Mayberry will ever hit?” one of them was asked, when the forever-prospect pinch hit in the 8th. The answer was an admission of Philadelphia’s troubles. “We keep hoping,” the fan said. “It’s either got to be him or Dominic Brown. One of the two . . . maybe.”
There were muffled attempts to gin up a “Let’s Go Phillies” chant in right field, but it led to nothing. “Let’s see,” a Nats partisan said, “you have Pete Orr at second and Juan Pierre in left.” Another fan chimed in. “I wouldn’t have Pierre on my team . . .” But the first fan continued, ” . . . and you have Laynce Nix at first. What the hell happened?”
The question was rhetorical. What’s happened to the Phillies is injuries — to Ryan Howard and the inestimable Chase Utley. Cliff Lee is down with something-or-other, and Roy Halladay’s last outing was an embarrassment — eight earned in just over five innings. “We’re a veteran team,” the Philadelphia fan said. There was a pause, but only for a heartbeat. A Nationals fan in Row CC leaned forward, speaking for all to hear. “You’re not a veteran team,” he said. “You’re old. There’s a difference.”
Ian Desmond’s two run last of the ninth walk off home run scored Bryce Harper and ended the Nationals five game losing streak — providing a 5-4 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. Desmond’s knock shocked Arizona closer J.J. Putz and sent the crowd at Nationals Park home as victors. The Nationals wrap-up their three game outing against the D-Backs tonight.
While Desmond was the hero of the night, attention was once again focused on Bryce Harper, whose play provided the Nationals’ spark. The rookie got his first hit as a National at Nationals Park in the second inning, made a sprawling barehanded catch in center in the sixth, doubled off the wall in the fourth and doubled again in the ninth to set up Desmond’s heroics.
“He was born for these situations,” Washington manager Davey Johnson said of Harper. That may be: but the Nationals desperately needed this win against the Snakes after spiraling into a hitting slump that had lasted since they lost their first of five in San Diego — in what seems eons ago.
The comeback victory provided other good story lines. After a heart-wrenching blown save in Los Angeles, Washington closer Henry Rodriguez returned to his predictable and dominating form, throwing in the ninth. While he gave up a hit, Rodriguez commanded the strike zone. And Craig Stammen was his usual lights-out self, holding Arizona to two hits in two innings.
The Wisdom Of Section 1-2-9: Surprisingly, the talk in the section wasn’t of Harper, but ranged instead over the team’s losing streak. Danny Espinosa and (shockingly) Wilson Ramos were the targets. “Did you see that Saturday game?” a regular asked. “We should have won that game [against L.A.] and I think we would have — if Ramos could have just held onto that ball.” Another fan chimed in: “He does that. A bad habit, really bad.”
Ramos’ dropped ball came on a rifle shot throw to home from Bryce Harper — the first proof that the wunderkind has a Rick Ankiel arm in the outfield. “They won’t run on him,” the first fan noted. “He has a rifle out there.” The dropped ball at the plate came in the Nationals 4-3 loss at Dodgers Stadium . . .
The section is now nearly unanimous: Danny Espinosa should give up “his experiment” of hitting from the left side of the plate. “He strikes out too much, whether he bats righty or lefty,” a Nationals partisan said. “Yeah, he strikes out a lot, another fan agreed, “but hell, the whole team does.”
Nats’ partisans were convinced that Harper’s call-up from Syracuse was much less “a part of the Harper plan” than it was a recogntion by G.M. Mike Rizzo that he had to do something to make up for the loss of Ryan Zimmerman and Michael Morse. “We stink at the plate,” a regular expounded. “We can’t just sit around and wait for people to get their swing.”
Another fan went further. “Harper will help,” he said, “but this team really suffers without Zimmerman. He’s the real spark.” Nods all around, and this: “I’d rather have Desmond here early than have Rizzo out searching for some kind of non-existent solution somewhere else. With Zim back and Morse back, that should be enough. LaRoche has been great, but he can’t carry the whole team.”
Fans groaned almost audibly when Henry Rodriguez made his ninth inning appearance, but gave him an ovation when, three outs later, he walked from the mound. “Mark my words,” a fan said, “by the end of the year we’ll be searching for bullpen help. Rodriguez is argument number one why not just anybody can close. I miss Storen.”
