I Wish It Would Rain (NOT)
Umpires:
HP: John Tumpane. 1B: Paul Nauert. 2B: James Hoye. 3B: Mark Wegner.
Weather:
63 degrees, cloudy.
Wind: 5
mph, In from CF.
T: 2:59
(3:17 delay).
Att: 25,447.
The
headline seemed appropriate, given the musical nature of this blog and the fact
that it was “Motown Monday” at the ballpark. The tunes were great enough that I
can forgive that they snuck in some Al Green and Earth, Wind & Fire,
neither of whom is actually Motown.
In
addition to the music, the other highlight was the Nats reversing their usual
practice of falling behind in the first inning. Rendon followed Denard Span’s
leadoff double with a home run off Zack Greinke to give the Nats the quick
lead. Zimmermann allowed at least one hit in each of his 4 innings, but did
keep the Dodgers off the scoreboard.
The first
hint that the non-baseball part of the evening might not go so well came at the
uncharacteristically disorganized Taqueria – as usual, not much of a line, but
it took a while for the orders to come out, at which point associating the food
with the person who had ordered it seemed to be a challenge. I was so relieved
to finally get my tacos that I got to my seat before noticing that they forgot
to include the usual cup of salsa.
I felt the
first drop of rain precisely at 7:00, shortly after a brisk and stirring
version of the National Anthem by DC Washington. I didn’t expect it to last for
long, despite how dark the sky was, but it refused to stop, ranging from light
to medium in intensity. I moved back several rows for most of the first inning,
back to my regular seat when it briefly let up, and watched the top of the
third on one of the monitors in the concourse. Following Teddy’s victory in the
middle of the 4th, the grounds crew made a prolonged and valiant
effort to get the infield into playable condition, but at 8:26 they finally started
putting on the tarp. The loudest cheer of the night then came when the Nats put
the Wizards game up on the scoreboard. Not being all that tempted by the
possibility of watching even super-large-screen TV while sitting in the rain, I
promptly headed for the Metro station – give Metro plenty of credit for
reacting quickly to get “baseball shuttle” trains onto the Green Line –
figuring that I’d probably be home in time to catch the end of the game. The
delay, however, exceeded even my pessimistic expectations, so I was off to bed
before they finally resumed play at 11:43. According to published reports, 5
Nats relievers then blanked L.A. for one inning each, and Espinosa hit a 2-run
shot in the bottom of the eighth to provide some insurance, before the end
finally arrived at 1:21am in front of perhaps a couple hundred hardy survivors.
(If there’s any justice, the Nats provided each of them with tickets to a
future game, at the very least.)
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