A no-hit wonder (borrowed from this morning’s Washington Post)
Umpires:
HP: Alan Porter. 1B: Gary Cederstrom. 2B: Mark Ripperger. 3B: Lance Barksdale.
Weather:
79 degrees, sunny.
Wind: 3
mph, Out to CF.
T: 2:01.
Att:
35,085. [Nats were actually outdrawn by the woeful Phillies, at 38,082, on their respective Fan Appreciation Days.]
It didn’t
start out as a great day for me. Traffic on the GW Parkway slowed much more
than usual, so I arrived late enough that I decided to skip the
originally-planned walk down to Subway. (Went with the Miami Cuban Sandwich
instead.) Then, once I got to the park, I realized that I had left my cellphone
at home. So I was a little out of sorts, despite the wonderful weather.
My initial
wish list for the final game of the season was (1) everybody staying healthy,
(2) Jordan Zimmermann pitching well, (3) one more hit from Denard Span to break
the Nats’ single-season record, and (4) winning the game. Ian Desmond did his
part towards #4 by homering off Henderson Alvarez in the bottom of the second,
for what would turn out to be the only run of the game. One inning later, Span
took care of #3, as he lined a double to right field and got a standing ovation
as he left the game for a pinch-runner. Matt Williams’ plan for the regulars
soon became obvious; get them out of game after 2 trips to the plate and give
the reserves some playing time. (The only exceptions were Ryan Zimmerman, still
in need of at-bats against major league pitching following his return from the
DL, and catcher Wilson Ramos, who went the whole way.)
I remember
remarking to Terry that I expected that Zimmermann would only pitch 6 innings
(the same as Strasburg the previous day), so that a couple of the relief
pitchers could get some action prior to the four-day break until the first playoff
game. I was actually so preoccupied with Williams’ lineup maneuvers that I didn’t
realize J-Zim had a no-hitter going until after the sixth inning, when I was
out on the concourse and heard Bob Carpenter on the radio broadcast saying that
there were 11 hits in the game, “all by the Nats.”
Naturally
the anticipation mounted from there. Zimmermann got a standing ovation after
retiring the Marlins 1-2-3 in the top of the eighth, but since he was still
under 100 pitches I think we all expected that he would come out for the ninth.
As we predicted, Williams took Ryan Zimmerman out after his final at-bat in the
bottom of the eighth, replacing him with Steven Souza Jr. in the ninth. The rest,
as they say, is history.
No comments:
Post a Comment