Random Acts of Red

On Sunday, the Five Tool Ninja invited me to DC to see the final game of the Phils-Nats series. Here's the account of what eventually wound up as a 6-4 win for the road team, a salvage moment after the Friday night pummeling of the newly acquired Roy Oswalt and the bad old bullpen, and Saturday's Brad Lidge gas-can walk-off job to Ryan Zimmerman.

First, the preliminary. Going to the game was, from the start, a questionable call. Money's been very tight for the past few months, and Sunday's game was the day after a casino poker blowout that mean I wasn't going to get more than a couple of hours of sleep before driving the 3.5 hours to the game. And when I said yes to it initially, it was under the impression that I was going to get to see wunderkind Stephen Strasburg, who wound up on the DL instead. But by then, the die was cast; I was going.

I wound up getting a better set-up than I could have hoped. The casino went well for my cash situation, and I got three hours of sleep before heading out. Navigating DC is always challenging without a GPS, but I made decent time and found the local Five Guys for lunch before going into the park, so all was well. The weather was sunny but overcast, and the seats in the left field bleachers were unshaded, but as the game began, it clouded and cooled off.

The Phils struck first, but Ryan Howard left for Cody Ransom after getting hit by a pitch and twisting his ankle going into second. For a team that's already reeling from the loss of Chase Utley and Shane Victorino, this was the last thing they needed, and after pushing two runs across, Sleep Mode was activated, which is what happens when rookie Dom Brown looks lost on off-speed pitches, and you are giving ABs to guys like Wilson Valdez and Ransom.

How punchless are the Phil-ins? So much so that junky lefty Jon Lannan, with an ERA approaching six and a fastball approaching meat, was able to hump up and strike out the side after the first two men reached in the fifth to end his day. On Opening Day, the Phils turned Lannan into hamburger with their real lineup. Yesterday, they made him look like Southpaw Strasburg.

Meanwhile on defense, Cole Hamels did what he's done for most of the year; pitch just well enough to remind you how good he was in 2008 while not being all that good. Against a Nats lineup with two threats (Adam Dunn and Zimmerman), one league-average stick in OF Josh Willingham, and a bunch of guys who could at best be described as serviceable, the one-time ace reached double digits in strikeouts and was dominant for much of the game... but in the inning that he gave up the league, he left a mistake up high to Zim with first base open and one away. Whiffing the next two hitters easily just exacerbated the mental error, really. Especially after Saturday's walkoff, making someone other than Zim beat you seems, well, important.

After watching Dunn make it 4-2 with a near foul pole homer to right, Hamels was in line to take the loss, and for the Phils to fail to make up ground on the Braves, who really look like the only other team in the division that can win over 90 games. But the Natty bully, with the noted exception of hard-throwing rooke closer candidate Drew Storen and the absent Tyler Clippard, isn't exactly airtight, especially after moving closer Matt Capps at the deadline. The Phils tied it in the seventh against fungibles like Miguel "Miss Iowa" Batista and vagabond Joel Peralta, then broke through in extras on clutch hits from Placido Polanco and a critical insurance RBI double from Jayson Werth.

Why critical? Well, when your closer is *still* Brad Lidge, despite 16 months of evidence that he's not bringing 2008 back, insurance gets used. Honestly, Phillies Fan cheered the Werth double harder than the Polanco game-winner, if only because it meant that the Nats would need more than the inevitable Zim leadoff homer. But Lidge wound up with a 1-2-3 save to keep the job for another couple of quease-inducing weeks, and that was that. Four hours of game, four innings of which were spent in an unpleasant drizzle, but a reasonable time and good company. Traffic getting out of there is a bad as advertised, though.

A few bonus points that didn't fit anywhere else...

1) Once upon a time, the Natty 'Spos were known for dynamic Latino talent -- Vlad Guerreo, Pedro Martinez, Delino DeShields, Marquis Grissom, etc., etc. Now, they might be the biggest group of rednecks and hicks outside of Boston. Dunn, Zim, Storen, Strasburg, Willingham... well, there might be a team that plays more country and western in their into music. But I doubt it.

2) Phillies Fan is becoming well and truly hated by the DC Locals, and for good reason. I like it, for no other reason than it allows for cross-sport hate. But give this for Nat Fan; they didn't go for Skins chants. Of course, when Daniel Snyder is your owner, that might be the reason why.

3) For some nicely awful editing moments, you can't beat late-inning scoreboard pleas for noise, intercut by low-key Nats Fans minding their own business. That was fun.

4) I'm as much of an old baseball yard / new stadiums are theft guy as there is on the planet. But in the fifth inning, with my bad life choices crashing down, an iced hazlenut coffee was an absolute day-saver. Even if it was $6 for something that might have cost them 35 cents to serve.

5) If you go, keep advised that the Nats remain pro-skin cancer, that the Five Guys burger is better than any in-stadium option, and that baseball in the cursed greater DC area remains little more than a road home game for the MLB+ clubs. But at least the Nats, unlike the Orioles, have a pulse. At least until Strasburg is gone, either through serious injury or free agency...