September 29, 2024 – Phillies 6, Nats 3

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS202409290.shtml

 

Start time: 3:05pm (the common starting time for all games on the final day* of the regular season)

Time: 2:40

Attendance: 26,729

Start Time Weather: 69° F, Wind 6mph in from Rightfield, Overcast, No Precipitation.

 

* - OK, not quite the final day THIS year …

 

This was a much drearier day for the hometown team, in terms of crowd size, result, and weather (at least it didn’t rain, but the sun went back into hibernation for the day), as the NL East Champion Phillies avoided the ignominy of being swept by a sub-.500 team in its final series before heading into the postseason.

 

Jake Irvin dug a hole for himself right away, sandwiching full-count walks to Kyle Schwarber and Nick Castellanos around a Trea Turner single to load the bases. Infield grounders by cleanup hitter (!) Bryson Stott and Alec Bohm each plated a run to give the visitors a quick lead, which the Nats immediately cut in half on a leadoff home run by Luis García Jr. off Aaron Nola.

 

Irvin then settled down, retiring the Phillies in order over the next three innings. Washington also failed to score, although they made it interesting in the 3rd when, with runners on first and third and one out, Dylan Crews was caught attempting to steal home. Irvin walked the leadoff hitter again in the top of the 5th, however, before two singles again produced a bases-loaded, no outs situation. This time Philadelphia took full advantage, with a two-run Schwarber single and a two-run double by Weston Wilson that ended Irvin’s outing.

 

The Nats again answered back in the bottom of the inning, scoring a pair of runs on four base hits off Nola. That would prove to end the scoring, despite mild threats by Washington in the 6th and Philadelphia in the 8th. The Nats did make things interesting in the bottom of the 9th against Phillies’ closer-for-the-day José Ruiz, loading the bases (walk-single-walk) with no outs. Ruiz recovered to fan García Jr. and James Wood, and Kody Clemens made a leaping catch at the left-field wall to retire Juan Yepez for the final out of Washington’s season and provide Ruiz with the first save of his 8-year major league career.

September 28, 2024 – Nats 6, Phillies 3

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/WAS/WAS202409280.shtml

 

Start time: 4:05pm

Time: 2:35

Attendance: 38,135

Start Time Weather: 84° F, Wind 6mph from Right to Left, Cloudy, No Precipitation.

Seats: Section 314, Row E, Seats 1-2 – one section to the right of our usual, seats on the “far” aisle, in the shade

 

The sky was bright for the only time this week, and it was actually rather warm out in the sun. Starting pitchers MacKenzie Gore and Zack Wheeler dominated the first five innings, with neither team getting a runner as far as second base. The Nats finally broke through in the bottom of the 6th on a two-run homer by James Wood.

 

The bullpens took over an inning later, although Phillies manager Rob Thomson kept Wheeler in for one more out so that he could reach the 200-inning mark for the season. The action really picked up in the 8th, as former Nat Trea Turner sent a two-out, 0-2 pitch from Jose A. Ferrer into the visitors’ bullpen to tie the game at 2. Washington answered back quickly in the bottom of the frame off Phils reliever Jeff Hoffman, with Wood leading off with a triple, Keibert Ruiz singling him home, and Joey Gallo adding an exclamation point with a three-run dinger four batters later. Kyle Finnegan closed things out in the 9th, allowing just one meaningless run. The victory allowed the Nationals to match their 71-win total from 2023 and sent at least half of the sellout crowd home happy.

Rosanne Cash – Strathmore, 9/22/2024

Orchestra Center, Row H, Seat 101 – 8 rows from the front, on the center-right aisle. Sightlines and sound were both excellent.

 

This was the third time I’ve seen Rosanne Cash at the Strathmore Music Center, but the experience never gets old. (She doesn’t appear to age much either.) This time I had a sneak peek, as the night before she closed out Saturday night of #XPNFest, the annual three-day music festival that WXPN conducts (and broadcasts) from Camden NJ, right across the river from Philadelphia. The setlists and patter were fairly similar, although the Strathmore show was significantly longer.

 

She reached back near the end of her show for 3 of the 11 (!) country-chart-topping songs from her 1980s commercial heyday (two of which she wrote), but most of her performance consisted of original material from her post-80s albums. She did, however, throw in a song from hubby John Leventhal’s new album, an expressive duet with Leventhal on the classic “Ode To Billie Joe”, Dylan’s “Farewell Angelina” as the encore, and two tracks from 2009’s The List, her record with a dozen of the 100 “greatest country songs” listing that her father had prepared for her. (She teased her husband on “Sea Of Heartbreak”, saying that he’d have to fill in for Bruce Springsteen as a duet partner, and referring to him semi-seriously as “The Boss” at the end.)

 

This year she’s been spotlighting The Wheel, the 1993 album which she remastered and re-released earlier this year once the rights to the recordings reverted to her. The group performed three tracks from it during the first half of the show, including a lovely acoustic take on “Tears Falling Down” and a driving version of the title track, which was one of the high points of the show, along with “The Only Thing Worth Fighting For” (one of my personal favorites) and “She Remembers Everything”.

 

The five-piece band was excellent, with Leventhal on acoustic and electric guitar throughout and Kevin Barry providing additional guitar work, including lap steel on several numbers. It also included Sam Katz on bass, Dan Rieser on drums, and Misty Boyce on keyboards (apologies for any misspellings).

 

Cash also revealed that she was going to be among the speakers at Tuesday’s unveiling of her father’s new statue in the U.S. Capitol, joining the one of civil rights leader Daisy Bates to represent the state of Arkansas.

 

The crowd was attentive and enthusiastic throughout. I didn’t see a single person going in or out until the end of the show (unlike some recent experiences at Wolf Trap).

 

Setlist