We went to see the Nats play the Cubs today.
Started off rather disastrously, as we had a heck of a time finding parking. My original plan was to park at the Navy Yard and walk, and that's what we should have done. It would have been a shorter walk, with much less driving around (and saved $25).
The only good thing to come out of that was that the Nats scored in the bottom of the first, while we were walking to the stadium.
After that, it was a whole lot of nothing, as Gio kept the Cubs from hitting it out of the infield, just about. But he was lifted for a pinch hitter (in the seventh, I think), and the bullpen could not do as well.
Eventually, the Cubs scored in both the eighth and ninth innings, so it ended up as a 2-1 victory for the Cubbies. Bleh.
It was the first time in a long while that I'd been to a baseball game (first time at all with the kids), and we had a good time. The kids didn't seem to pay much attention to the game, though. I tried to explain how the game was played, but they didn't seem to have any real interest. I'll have to try again later. Maybe from better seats; they weren't bad, but beyond the outfield is definitely not ideal for a first experience with the game. And having lots of Cubs fans around us didn't help any, either.
One funny thing did come from it. Coming home, we were behind a car with Virginia tags, 'ITE URSI'. Took me a minute to puzzle it out to be 'Go Bears', in Latin. Really wanted to congratulate them on the cool tag, but wasn't feasible.
Showing posts with label nationals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nationals. Show all posts
20130512
20121029
Baseball yesterday
I usually follow baseball pretty closely, at least checking the scores every day (Calcaterra does a particularly good job of this, I think, although fangraphs win pct graphs are also quite interesting). But this season, I've almost completely ignored baseball.
Which was, in retrospect, apparently not a good decision. First, the Nationals were legitimately good (as opposed to their first season in Washington, when they, at times, appeared like they might be good), finishing with the best record in the majors. Contributing to that, Bryce Harper had the fifth-best OPS+ ever for a 19-year old. Strasburg had a very good season, but might have been only the third best pitcher on the team (if ERA+ is your measure of choise). Elsewhere, Mike Trout upstaged Phat Albert on his own team (and it wasn't close). Miguel Cabrera was the first Triple Crown winner in many years. The new Wild Card system resulted in some weird games, including a massive controversy over the infield fly rule in the NL game.
But, like I said, I missed almost all of that. I didn't watch a single Nats game until game five of the division series, when I saw the Cards chip away at, and eventually overcome, a six-run Nats lead. Even worse, they had twice been down to their last strike. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, when I decided to turn the game on.
I didn't watch another game until last night. I wasn't even going to turn the TV on, but my wife asked if anything was on, and that jogged my memory about the Giants and Tigers playing. When we turned it on, the Giants were down a run, but Posey came up as we turned it on, and knocked it out to turn that around immediately.
The Tigers put one out in the bottom of the inning to tie the game, and it became a bullpen duel. I figured that would heavily favor the Giants, but nobody scored until it got to extra innings. That generally favors the home team, but not last night, as the Giants managed to manufacture a run on a bloop, a nice sacrifice (applauding only the execution, not the strategy), followed by another dying quail in the top of the tenth.
Sergio Romo came in to close it out, and did so with style (but not subtlety). He threw five straight sliders to the first batter, getting a strikeout, five sinkers to the second (same result), and six sliders followed by one fastball to Cabrera for the final out (another strikeout).
It was an interesting, back and forth, game that the Giants took to cap a surprising sweep. So congratulations to the Giants on the win. I think they can now consider Sabean's position a sinecure (if it wasn't already), for better or for worse. And let's hope the Nats can do better next year, with a full year of Stras, and improvement in development (for Harper, especially) and health (for Werth, especially).
Which was, in retrospect, apparently not a good decision. First, the Nationals were legitimately good (as opposed to their first season in Washington, when they, at times, appeared like they might be good), finishing with the best record in the majors. Contributing to that, Bryce Harper had the fifth-best OPS+ ever for a 19-year old. Strasburg had a very good season, but might have been only the third best pitcher on the team (if ERA+ is your measure of choise). Elsewhere, Mike Trout upstaged Phat Albert on his own team (and it wasn't close). Miguel Cabrera was the first Triple Crown winner in many years. The new Wild Card system resulted in some weird games, including a massive controversy over the infield fly rule in the NL game.
But, like I said, I missed almost all of that. I didn't watch a single Nats game until game five of the division series, when I saw the Cards chip away at, and eventually overcome, a six-run Nats lead. Even worse, they had twice been down to their last strike. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for, when I decided to turn the game on.
I didn't watch another game until last night. I wasn't even going to turn the TV on, but my wife asked if anything was on, and that jogged my memory about the Giants and Tigers playing. When we turned it on, the Giants were down a run, but Posey came up as we turned it on, and knocked it out to turn that around immediately.
The Tigers put one out in the bottom of the inning to tie the game, and it became a bullpen duel. I figured that would heavily favor the Giants, but nobody scored until it got to extra innings. That generally favors the home team, but not last night, as the Giants managed to manufacture a run on a bloop, a nice sacrifice (applauding only the execution, not the strategy), followed by another dying quail in the top of the tenth.
Sergio Romo came in to close it out, and did so with style (but not subtlety). He threw five straight sliders to the first batter, getting a strikeout, five sinkers to the second (same result), and six sliders followed by one fastball to Cabrera for the final out (another strikeout).
It was an interesting, back and forth, game that the Giants took to cap a surprising sweep. So congratulations to the Giants on the win. I think they can now consider Sabean's position a sinecure (if it wasn't already), for better or for worse. And let's hope the Nats can do better next year, with a full year of Stras, and improvement in development (for Harper, especially) and health (for Werth, especially).
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)