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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