The Nats Win In New York With Few Witnesses

So today in New York, for the second straight day in rain and gloom, the very worst team in baseball, which came into the series on pace to lose the most games since the expansion Mets, has taken back to back games against the freaking Yankees. Today's win was sparked by Craig Stanmen (who?), with his first MLB victory from 6.1 shutout innings, then followed up with 2.2 from the immortal Ron Villone, Julian Tavarez, Joe Beimel and Mike MacDougal -- in other words, four utter journeyman relievers, many of whom have been part and parcel of a historic amount of fail to get the Nats to, well, where they are. Before this series, MacDougal had not had a save since 2006; now, he has two.

It was also the first homer-free game in the history of the new Stadium, which only stands to reason, since it happened with a 5.5 hour rain delay. Which meant that only 10K people were in attendance -- one wonders whether the Nats are just starting to wonder if they'll ever get to play in front of a crowd -- and in a rare moment of usefulness, the Yanks allowed the fans to move down, finally filling the $2,625 seats.

Now, I'd love to make more of this and delight in Yankee misery, but, well, it just feels kinda silly. With the loss, the Yanks are 3.5 out in the East but still leading the wildcard; there's really nothing that could happen here, short of an injury, that anyone is going to remember later in the year. As bad as the Nats have been, even the worst team in baseball has to win 3 out of 10 games or so, and on talent, they really aren't a historically bad team.

Of course, I'm not really expecting such a long view to be in the tabloids tomorrow...