Umpires:
HP: Clint Fagan. 1B: Jeff Nelson. 2B: Scott Barry. 3B: Laz Diaz.
Weather:
75 degrees, sunny.
Wind: 1
mph, In from RF.
T: 3:06.
Att:
32,813.
The Nats
broke out of their offensive doldrums in a big way in the first two games of
the Texas series, scoring 9 runs on Friday night and 10 on Saturday afternoon.
It was certainly too much to expect them to keep up that pace, and Rangers ace
Yu Darvish shut them down emphatically on Sunday afternoon, pitching 8 shutout
innings with 12 strikeouts in the visitors’ victory.
The Nats
got off to a good offensive start with a leadoff double by Denard Span, who
went to third on a grounder by Rendon. With the infield in (!) – the Rangers
were obviously anticipating a low-scoring affair -- Darvish responded by
getting a shallow pop from Jayson Werth, and then fanning Ramos after working
around LaRoche. He then proceeded to strike out the next 4 batters, prior to a
one-out single by Span in the third. Span stole second base with two out and
Werth up, but Darvish struck out Werth to retire the side. Singles by Werth and
LaRoche put Nats on first and third with one out in the bottom of the sixth,
but Darvish again pitched out of trouble, featuring another strikeout of Ramos.
Tanner
Roark matched Darvish in results if not dominance for six innings, helped out
by an attempted double-steal with two outs in the first inning on which both
managers used replay challenges. Matt Williams argued that Elvis Andrus had not
in fact crossed home plate before Alex Rios was retired at second, while
Rangers manager Ron Washington claimed that Rios should actually have been
called safe. Both rulings went the Nats’ way, and an important run was taken
off the board.
The
Rangers finally put a run up against Roark in the seventh. Donnie Murphy led
off with a single, but things looked good for the Nats when he was caught
attempting to steal second. Leonys Martin, however, promptly deposited a Roark
changeup into the Nats bullpen for the first run of the game. The Rangers added
an insurance run off Drew Storen in the top of the eighth – not really needed
as it turned out, as the Nats went quietly against Darvish and Texas closer
Joakim Soria in the bottom of the eighth and ninth.
Traffic
was pretty reasonable on the way down (slightly longer backup to get onto the
14th Street Bridge than usual), but the mysterious late afternoon
backups on the Legion Bridge continued, with slow traffic for the last couple
miles of the GW Parkway. Went with tacos again (they remembered the salsa this
time), and lemonade given the perfect weather. (Would have also picked up some
ice cream, but there was an extremely long line, and the promised express line
for us eCash users wasn’t in operation.)
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