I would like to apologize for my absence here lately. I have been pretty busy with my day job and haven’t had much free time to write here. I am hopeful that things are calming down though and I will be able to come back strong. After a ten game losing streak, lets hope thats the case for the Nats too! I missed the Rockies series last weekend, because I went north to visit family. I was able to get my baseball fill there and attended a double A Erie Seawolves game. They are affiliated with the Detroit Tigers. We had some great seats and saw some promising prospects. Sadly, the Seawolves suffered a 6-3 loss stranding lots of runners on base. The whole sense was oddly familiar. I took a few photos just because we had such a good view.

It seems like weeks since I have really watched a Nats game, so I happily tuned in tonight. The Nats scored early off of another Willie Harris home run. They took the lead in the 4th inning when RBI guru Jesus Flores hit Lastings Milledge home with a single. It’s good to see Flores behind the plate. I was dreading the day to day label after he strained his calf this weekend. Ryan Howard had a heck of a play at first base to limit the Nats to just one run in the 4h.

Zimmerman hit his first triple of the year in the 5th inning. Willie Harris flew around the bases and put the Nats up by two. Ronnie Belliard followed with an RBI single. The Phillies scored twice in the 5th inning after Willie Harris dropped a routine fly ball. Bergmann got the double play ball needed to end the inning and keep the Nats up by one.

The Nats led off the 6th inning with consecutive base hits from Kearns and Casto. I really don’t think Bergmann can bunt to save his life poor guy, Kearns was out at third on the play. The boys ended up leaving another two runners on base.

Ronnie Belliard hit another single in the 7th making him 4 for 4, but he was caught stealing second for the thrid out while Jesus Flores was at bat. In the bottom of the 7th, Jesus Flores threw the ball high to first base, and Victorino advanced to third, but the umpire immediately called off the play due to umpire’s interference and Shane trotted back to first. Steven Shell entered the game with one out in the 7th to replace Bergmann. The Phillies then tied the game on a fly ball to right field.

The Phillies broke the tie in the 8th when Jayson Werth hit a solo home run off of Shell. Manning came in as a lefty, but was taken out in favor of Rivera who go the one pitch third out to end the 8th.

The Nats couldn’t mount a rally against Lidge in the 9th and lost 5-4.  Tonight’s loss to the Phillies marks their 11th in a row.  Tough times to be a Nats fan for sure.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Game Recaps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.