It was a holiday. It was an extra inning affair. It was time for a pinch hitter with a flair for dramatic late-inning holiday heroics. Or so we hoped. Instead, Wil Nieves came to the plate and quickly recorded the second out in a quick 1-2-3 inning for Saloman Torres which finished the game. Zimmerman was unavailable due to a lingering shoulder injury, an injury sustained in Baltimore last weekend after a slide into second base. Watching a Memorial Day loss without Zim in the line-up was hard, but knowing that this shoulder problem could become something worse has everyone concerned. First revealed by Paul Lo Duca, it seemed as though the shoulder was just sore. Yesterday, however, Ryan wasn’t sure when he’d be ready to play again. With so many of our guys on the DL, this injury is alarming.
As for the game, Jason Bergmann tossed 5.2 innings of scoreless ball with 4 hits, one walk and 8 strike-outs. Bergmann extends his scoreless streak to 19 2/3 innings since returning from AAA. Unfortunately for him, the bullpen surrendured 4 runs over the final innings. Everybody struggled to get runners out. Manning, Sanches, Hanrahan and Rivera all gave up one run each. We gave the Brewers lots of free opportunities over the course of the whole game (1 passed ball, 1 wild pitch, 5 walks, 3 stolen bases and an error). All in all, we’re lucky it wasn’t worse.
The Nats got on the board early with a solo shot by Cristian Guzman in the first. Elijah Dukes and Jesus Flores padded the score with consecutive doubles in the 2nd.
After leading for most of the game, the bullpen faltered in the ugly 7th inning. The Nats surrendered a wild pitch and a stolen base. They used three pitchers and Dmitri Young had a costly error. In the top of the eighth, Hanrahan walked Cameron and quickly paid for it when Prince Fielder hit the sacrifice fly that put the Brewers on top.
Dmitri Young answered back in the bottom of the inning with a home run to centerfield which deflected off the centerfield wall and rolled back onto the field. Young chugged along the bases as fast as a big guy like that could possibly go and arrived at third safely before Manny Acta came out to question the umpires. After a few minutes of discussion, they ruled it a home run and D trotted home to tie the game. Manny again came out to argue in the 11th inning when second base umpire Paul Emmel called Gabe Kapler safe at 2nd on a steal attempt. Lopez was visibly angry with the call, as were almost all of the fans still in attendance. It was Kapler’s single just moments before which put the Brewers up. Rivera prevented further damage, but nobody could hit off Torres to mount a comeback rally in the bottom of the inning and the Nats fell 4-3 with no walk-off home run in extra innings by the face of the franchise.
We sat by the bullpen yesterday and loved the view. Despite missing the scoreboard and having no tvs there, it’s a great view of the park and the bullpen and the shade was a welcome treat during a hot day game. Here’s the photos.
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