“A broken campaign promise to change the way Washington
works is exactly the way Washington works.”
One of the great lines from the late political satirist and
comic Mark Russell, who referred to himself as “a political cartoonist for the
blind.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2023/03/30/mark-russell-satirist-pianist-dead/
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 5th
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 4th.
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 2nd.
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 9th,
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.
