All posts tagged: Washington Nationals

That’s More Like It

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In a year of struggles, today’s Nationals/Phillies series wrap-up was one of the feel-good games of 2013. The day:  Beautiful late afternoon game at the ballpark with 32,355 other fans…including Andrew!  Third game in 8 days, and second with Andrew.  (Can you tell I’m on vacation!) Temps in the low 80s, and Section 313 starts out in the shade!  Smart decision to take the scorecard. Even the President’s Race was funny: each president wipes out Sharknado (don’t ask…something to do with the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week), Bill Taft gives him a body slam for good measure, and Teddy wins. On to the game itself… Stephen Strasburg:  First career complete game and a shutout for good measure.  No Philly makes it into scoring position. Totally dominant. Ten strikeouts. One walk. 99 total pitches – 66 strikes. Jayson Werth:  Second three-hit game in a row. Hitting ropes to left field.  Werewolf in London walk-up music shows he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Scores – along with Ian Desmond – on one of the best hustle/heads-up plays of the …

Summer Reading 2013, Part II: Or How the Nats Lost Their Way

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Technically, I read Shawn Green’s unique little memoir/meditation The Way of Baseball before summer began, but after a night at the ballpark watching our Nats utterly fold in a three-game series sweep by the division leading Braves and reading Tom Boswell’s insightful (as always) column about how this year’s season went so wrong, I was reminded of how much I enjoyed this book. Let’s begin with Boswell and the Nats. For two-thirds of a season we’ve been told that the Nats had “too much talent” to keep playing this poorly, and that they would switch it on in time to get back in the pennant race.  But the Braves put an end to that kind of talk, with as utterly dominating a three-game series as you could have where the total run differential was only 5 runs for the three games.  Boswell put it best when he described the sweep as “an execution by proper execution.” Amen. The Nats played so effortlessly last year that it is easy to forget how difficult baseball can be …

A Gem of a Day

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By just about any measure, it was a pretty wonderful day for a baseball game in the nation’s capital. Sunday of Memorial Day weekend…the start of summer. (Check.) Sunny skies with temps in the high sixties/low seventies throughout the afternoon. (Check.) A huge crowd at the yard.  Official attendance of 39,033.  (You look for these things when you’re scoring the game.) (Check.) Wonderful daughter along for the afternoon. (Check!) As we left home for the metro around noon for the 1:35 first pitch, Claire and I had on appropriate game-day attire.  (I think she still finds it amazing that someone who is 20 – her age – can play major league baseball, so I offered up the Harper shirt.) Strasburg was on the mound, and he was sharp! The Phillies were confused all day.  Eight strong innings and nine strikeouts later – with the only blemish being a balk on his next to last pitch allowing a man on third to score – he showed that despite the strange 3-5 W-L record this year, he’s …

Opening Day Finally Arrives!

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A quick lunch break shout-out for the arrival of opening day!  Let’s go Nats!! I’m part of a season ticket group, so the “coordinator” of the group gets – as it should be – the opening and closing games of the season.  Tom’s photo from 20 minutes ago is at the top of the post.  But come Wednesday night, for game #2 of 162 (and more!) this year, Candice and I will be in these same seats ready to cheer on Gio and the rest of the boys of summer. I know that the first day of the season was actually yesterday when the Astros played the Rangers, but it was just weird to see the Astros as an American League team. I was glad to see former Nat Rick Ankiel get the key home run.  Maybe when a recent N.L. doormat roughs up a recent perennial A.L. playoff contender, it just shows that the N.L. has passed the A.L. in playing quality baseball.  But I digress. It has been a long winter since our …

Scorebook

2012 N.L. East Division Champs!

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Like Michael Morse – shown here grinning as he steps to the plate to lead off the bottom of the 9th in a 2-0 Nationals loss to the Phillies –  I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun in a ballpark after a loss. Best. Losing. Night. Ever. Candice and I were at Nationals Park on Monday, October 1st, hoping to watch the Nats clinch their first ever National League East Division championship. It didn’t happen the way we hoped, with a Nats victory. But since they played so well from April through September, this loss on the first day of October didn’t keep our boys from clinching. About 10 minutes before our game ended, the Pittsburgh Pirates (bless their hearts) defeated the Atlanta Braves. With a magic number of one, the deed was done and the outcome on the field was anti-climatic. For the third time this year, I made the big screen, this time holding up a pair of Champs banners that our seat mate had brought to the park. Let the …

High and Tight or High Lonesome…It’s All Good

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Last evening felt like an embarrassment of riches. The Nationals were mowing down the hated Phillies on the road, to maintain the best record in baseball and lower their magic number to 3.  There were some high and tight pitches thrown. Michael “The Beast” Morse hits a home run “nine million feet” into the Nat’s bullpen in right-center field where reliever Tom Gorzelanny catches the ball in his cap, eliciting whoops, cheers, and raised arms all around. It was fun to watch. But the International Bluegrass Music Association awards (IBMA) show was being live streamed on Bluegrass Today’s web site from the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville at the same time, with appearances by Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers, Doyle Lawson, and many others. What’s a bluegrass loving Nat’s fan to do? Simple…multi-task. Zap goes the mute button. I’ll “listen” to Bob and F.P. on closed captions. Next, I turn on the live stream on the iPad and we’re off to the races. Loved the tribute to Ralph Rinzler and the story of how …

Baseball Pilgrimages (Continued)

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It was a night when you wondered if Noah was nearby, putting the finishing touches on his ark. Lightening and thunder in rapid succession. Rain that lashed at the body if you were unfortunate enough to be outside. Howling winds. Waves lapping at the shore. And I was in Tampa, not to help rewrite the Republican national platform, but for something much more consequential: to catch a baseball game. In most cities it would have been a wasted opportunity. But the Tampa Bay Rays play in St. Petersburg’s Tropicana Field, one of the few remaining domes still hosting major league baseball on a daily basis. And for this night, I was glad to have a roof over my head when Ray’s ace David Price threw that first pitch right on schedule. Tampa Bay was #14 on my journey to visit all 30 major league ballparks.  It promised to be a special night.  The Rays were on a hot streak, winning five games to close the gap with the first-place Yankees to four games. Their ace …

You Know Your Team Has Had a Rough Day…

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You know your team has had a rough day when the President’s Race is the best thing on the “Nats Highlights” reel at the end of the day. Yes, Thomas Jefferson wiped out George, Abe, and finally Teddy with a series of pretty impressive body checks before crossing the finish line at the head of the pack. But on a beautiful Father’s Day in Washington, the home-standing Nationals couldn’t match  Tom’s effort and come up with the timely hits they needed.  Unfortunately, they also  made a couple of uncharacteristic blunders that led to a 4-1 Yankees win and a sweep of the weekend series. But I was enjoying the weather, the sell-out crowd…and my daughter Claire. So all-in-all it was a pretty wonderful day. And as is true with any day at the ballpark, you’ll always see something you’ve never seen before. Today (besides Tom wiping out Teddy just before the finish line), it was fun to watch 19-year-old phenom Bryce Harper rap out a double… …and then spend the next minute or so chatting …

Hot Stuff at the Ballpark

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Every baseball game has a better than 50-50 chance of showing you something you’ve never seen before. After yesterday afternoon’s “Hot Stuff” game, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Yes, I played hookey from work yesterday afternoon to catch a day game with a friend at Nationals Park.  (Question:  can it be hookey if  you tell your boss and your assistant…and wear blue jeans to work with a Strasburg t-shirt underneath your regular shirt?) When I chose that game from my season ticket pool, I had no idea that Stephen Strasburg would be pitching! It was a muggy and overcast day, and I arrived just in time to see three Nats stand in left field and let a routine fly ball from the first Padres hitter  fall between them for a “double.” (Where is truth-in-scoring?  That was an error. Just assign it to someone and get over it.)  Jeez, these guys are in first place? But that was just the beginning. Stephen Strasburg (he of the miniscule ERA and over-powering stuff) looked uncomfortable …