by Andrew Lang
by Stephen G. "Ghost" Mears
by Andrew Lang
From Thursday to Friday, the Washington Nationals got a do-over of sorts. With identical tie scores of 2-2 entering the 9th inning at Nationals Park, a disastrous 9th and 10th innings on Thursday went 180° on Friday to a walk-off winner.
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In the new MLB scheduling, the Washington Nationals have the Los Angeles Angels in Nationals Park on even years, and hopefully one day for a World Series. Both teams are rebuilding now, and by the looks of it, the Nats are far ahead in the rebuilding process. This week in fact, Baseball America ranked the Nats as the 4th best farm system in baseball, while the Angels were ranked at dead last. If the Angels were a playoff team now, maybe you could justify their barren farm system — but they are a 3 1/2 games ahead of the lowly Oakland A’s in the AL West standings. Sadly, the Nats are only 1/2 game ahead of the Angels in MLB standings.
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Yesterday’s game was a muddy mess at Nationals Park, both figuratively and literally. The rains pelted the playing surface for much of the day. The game itself, encapsulated the great, the good, the bad, and the ugly. The score was a 2-2 tie going into the 9th inning. Up until that point, during the pouring rain at parts of the game, and three separate rain delays, there was hope for a Washington Nationals victory.
A key mistake pushed the game to a 3-run deficit in the 9th inning from what should have been a 2-run deficit. Then a baseball miracle from Luis Garcia Jr. brought visions of a Nats’ victory. Never in the history of the Nationals has a game been tied in the 9th inning from a 3-run deficit in a 2-strike, 2-out situation until Garcia Jr. knocked a baseball just above the left field wall, 351 feet, for a wall-scraping home run to tie the game with the improbable, “Weaver.”
But what happened before that, had the postgame consternation, because the Nationals ended up losing the game in extra innings. With bases loaded in this 2-2 game in the 9th inning, it was a good pitch by Kyle Finnegan that turned into a disaster — because he did not back-up his catcher in case of an errant throw from the outfield — which occurred — as the throw skipped off the wet grass into the Giants’ dugout — allowing an extra run to score. A 4-2 deficit turned to 5-2 when the umpire awarded the runner at third base the advancement to home plate.
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The Washington Nationals are set to complete their 4-game series against the San Francisco Giants, and the Nats need a win today to even the series. Of course, the weather will be a factor, and the team moved up the game time four hours to try to get this in.
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The Washington Nationals have been finding ways to come-from-behind for wins. From a 4-0 deficit to an 11-5 winner has to feel good as nearly everyone on the Nats’ side contributed to the win. Tonight, weather permitting, the Nats will face Blake Snell who is coming off of a no-hitter. The Nats have their top pitcher, Jake Irvin, on the mound.
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The Washington Nationals Twitter/X account posted up what they called “a painting” that looked a photo, so we used Photoshop to get us started on creating a DC Masterpiece, and then added some brushstrokes. In the center of the painting is James Wood sporting the Uncle Slam hat, and he is surrounded by his teammates in a celebration of one of the most impressive home runs in Nats’ history.
For Wood, that was just his 31st career game, and he did it all last night with a home run, triple, two walks, two stolen bases, and four runs scored, to get his team to an 11-5 laugher that began kind of gloomy in a first inning 4-0 deficit.
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The Washington Nationals have a new team leader in WAR (Wins Above Replacement) as Luis Garcia Jr. captured the top spot yesterday. Of course, it could be short-lived since Garcia is only fractionally ahead of MacKenzie Gore who starts tonight. This will be a battle to the end to see who is voted locally as the team’s MVP. What a positive impact from Garcia who was demoted a year ago this week to Triple-A Rochester — and was not a lock to make the Nats’ Opening Day roster this year. Not only did he come into training camp in great shape, his defense is markedly improved and rated second best on the team.
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The Washington Nationals got a 5.0 inning gem from DJ Herz on Saturday followed by a 6.0 inning gem by Mitchell Parker in back-to-back zero earned run outings. Both James Wood and Luis Garcia Jr. came through to provide the needed run-support.
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There seemed to be an assumption regarding the ordering of Washington Nationals top prospects to make their MLB debuts. As the common thinking was assumed, James Wood would be called up first, then Dylan Crews, and finally Brady House from the Nationals’ Top-3 prospects. That group of prospects, who all finished their 2023 seasons together at Double-A Harrisburg, arrived at Spring Training this year to find side-by-side lockers, that manager Dave Martinez nicknamed as “Hope Row”.
Continue readingThe Washington Nationals got a 5.0 inning gem from DJ Herz, and some power from Luis Garcia Jr. to halt that losing streak in front of over 30,000 fans in attendance yesterday. But maybe the real story is that Garcia was demoted to the minor leagues exactly one year ago. He has come back playing much improved defense, limiting mistakes, and a clutch bat. This morning, he leads all Nats’ position players in FanGraphs WAR. One of the best redemption stories in baseball.
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"Opening Day should be a National holiday"
