Umpires:
HP: Marty Foster. 1B: Rob Drake. 2B: Alan Porter. 3B: Joe West.
Weather:
91 degrees, partly cloudy.
Wind: 1
mph, Out to RF.
T: 3:19.
Att:
26,033.
The
Colorado Rockies got off to a great start this season, but have been slumping
badly in recent weeks. The Nats showed no signs of allowing them to turn things
around, following up Monday evening’s 7-3 victory in Bryce Harper’s return with
an even more convincing 7-1 thumping on Tuesday.
Things
unraveled quickly for Colorado starter Christian Friedrich, as he walked the
first two Nats batters in the bottom of the first. Jayson Werth smashed a
double past the third baseman to score two runs. He then moved to third on a
LaRoche infield single and scored on a Zimmerman sacrifice fly.
Perhaps
not satisfied with the three-run lead, Strasburg took matters into his own
hands with one out in the bottom of the fourth, sending a Friedrich fastball
deep into the right field corner. He thought about going for a triple, but
decided that discretion was the better part of valor and settled for a double.
Remaining cautious on the base paths, he stopped at third on a Denard Span
single (after which the Rockies replaced Friedrich with Chad Bettis), and
stayed put on a subsequent wild pitch on which Span took second. Rendon finally
provided a no-effort path for Strasburg to score with a double that plated both
baserunners. Werth then knocked in Rendon with his second double of the game,
moved to third on a LaRoche ground out, and scored on Bettis’s second wild
pitch of the inning. With the bases now empty, the Nats added singles by
Zimmerman and Harper before the inning finally ended.
Strasburg
had to make a lot of pitches in the first two innings, but was never seriously
threatened. Given the heat and the Sunday and Thursday off days, I thought they
might lift him relatively early to give the bullpen some work, but he pitched
into the 8th, finally giving up a home run to DJ LeMahieu and his
first walk of the game before Stammen came on to get the final 4 outs.
I started
things off with a frozen lemon ice, with a grilled chicken sandwich later for
something more substantial. Since I had been up late the night before and had
to do volunteer work in the morning, I took off around 9:45 (end of the sixth),
getting back to the Shady Grove Metro at 11.
The other
highlight of the evening was bumping into our former section mates the
Schroders for the first time all year. (Due to an ongoing schedule conflict,
they had to switch to a different partial plan this season.)