March 30, 2023 – Braves 7, Nats 2

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS202303300.shtml

 

Time: 3:07

Attendance: 35,756

 

This was far from the best-played game in baseball history – 5 errors total (3 by Nats shortstop CJ Abrams), and a number of other plays that should have been made but weren’t. Maybe it was Opening Day jitters, or the cold, windy weather (gametime temperature of 45, plus an 8mph wind that felt much stronger at times in the stands). At least it was sunny, and the new pitch-clock rules probably saved us from an extra 20-30 minutes of frozen-finger misery. The Nats’ marketing over the past couple weeks made it obvious that the opener wouldn’t sell out, and I suspect they were reasonably satisfied to break the 35K mark.

 

Neither starting pitcher made it to the 5^th inning. Atlanta’s Max Fried strained his left hamstring while covering first base, and Patrick Corbin was lifted one batter into the top of the 4^th. Corbin was not helped by his leaky defense, and several of the 7 hits against him weren’t hit all that hard, but too many of his 85 pitches missed the strike zone, including a bases-loaded walk he issued in the visitors’ 3-run 2^nd.

 

Washington’s offense had its chances but failed to capitalize on most of them, going 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position. Their first 3 relievers covered 5 innings following Corbin’s exit without being charged with a run, but Kyle Finnegan (with the help of Abrams’ final error) let the Braves add 3 runs to their 4-2 lead in the top of the 9^th, pretty much eliminating any prospect of a late home-team rally.

 

Our Metro trips were relatively uneventful, once the gates finally let me in at Shady Grove. Ballpark concessions were a mixed bag. The good news is both of us managed to get lunch in a reasonably timely fashion. My chicken arepa was both delicious and filling, although quite messy. The process to purchase it, however, was almost comically complicated. A number of stands weren’t able to operate their soda machines, many of the lines were quite long, and some places were obviously unable to keep the supply of food items up with the demand.