We all had to hustle and struggle a little to get out of DC and on the road last night to see our boys in Baltimore. To our surprise, the drive was actually quite smooth; we arrived at 7:30 pm, missing only the first few innings.
It was the Stephs first trip to Camden Yards; they’ll be pictures later today.
We know the Nats surprised Baltimore fans, but we’ve been believing it would all come together eventually. Chief said yesterday,
At the beginning of the season, everybody was writing us off already. They were saying we were going to be one of the worst teams in the history of baseball, but we never thought that. We knew we could go out there and play hard and play right along with these teams. Unfortunately, the first month of the season, we did do exactly what they said we would do, but right now, we are just going out there and staying within ourselves.
Simontacci was excellent against Guthrie, helping to make our 3-1 victory possible.
After parking and food, we settled in on the third-base line around the 4th inning where we watched most of the game. The guys were nice enough to have no action until we arrived. Lopez came through big again last night with a 2-out RBI, while Young, Belliard, Guzman, and Langerhans managed to get some hits. After Ryan Zimmerman’s should-have-been-great hits were taken from him by Tejada, we were so excited when he hit that RBI single in the 8th.
Toward the end of the game, we moved over to stand behind the bullpen and watch King, Rivera, Rauch, Traber and Cordero warm up. We were really pulling for Rauch to have a good night. He looked great in the bullpen and managed to end the inning with 2 strike-outs. Chief also looked great. It was a whole new experience to be that close to a pitcher and able to watch his precise movement. I was practicing the umpire gig by calling Chief’s strikes and balls (heck it was easy; Chief doesn’t throw balls).
To our surprise, we noticed a Nats fan that looked really familiar. After thinking for a few seconds, we realized that we had met him in Chicago at Wrigley in May. We asked him if he remembered, he did, and we all had a nice chat. Some young Nats fan amused us when he told Colome that if HE were Manny, he’d put Colome in.
Manny on the sweep:
Asked how good it was to win the Battle of the Beltway, Acta said, “It good for our fans. They won the bragging rights up until next year. We’ll try to do our best for them. It’s going to be an even bigger rivalry. We know that.”
Just for fun…
DID YOU KNOW?
Prior to Stan Kasten’s decision to ban alcohol in our clubhouses, the Nationals were 9-25. After that decision, the Nats are 20-12.
Entries (RSS)