Nationals Defeat theCardinals…Cavalli Wins Again

Weekend in review…

Friday, September 18th

The current ace of the Washington Nationals’ pitching staff, Cade Cavalli, won his 13th

game of the season tonight with five shutout innings. Cade gave up four hits while striking

out six Cardinals. He was probably taken out of the game a little early due to the Nationals

having a big lead. Three relievers finished it off while only surrendering a single run.

The Nationals got off to a fast start tonight in St. Louis. With one out in the first inning

Daylen Lile drew a base on balls. Dylan Crews then singled to right field sending Lile to

third base. CJ Abrams followed with a single to right sending Crews to third and Lile across

home plate. Abrams then stole second and advanced to third on a throwing error, with

Crews scoring the second run of the inning. Abrams then came home on a ground out off

the bat of Brady House. 3-0 Washington.

The Nats added to their lead in the top of the third. James Wood walked but was then

forced out at second due to a ground out by Daylen Lile. Dylan Crews followed with a tworun homer to right field, his 12th of the year. With two outs, Brady House doubled to right

and advanced to third base on a fielding error. Jorbit Vivas then walked. Yohandy Morales

followed with a double to left field, scoring House and Vivas. 7-0 good guys.

Top of the fourth and the Nationals are still scoring runs. Jacob Young led off the inning

with a double to center field. James Wood grounded out, sending Young to third base.

Daylen Lile followed with a sacrifice fly to left field, scoring Young. 8-0 Washington.

The Nats weren’t letting up as they tacked on another run in the top of the sixth. With one

out Harry Ford walked but was forced out at second on a grounder off the bat of Jacob

Young. James Wood followed with a double to right field scoring Young. 9-0 Nationals.

The Cardinals broke up the shutout in the bottom of the eighth. Nathan Church led off with

a double and then made it to third base on a deep fly ball off the bat of J.J. Wetherholt. Ivan

Herrera grounded out as Church scored their first run of the game. 9-1 Nats.

Washington wouldn’t give the Cards another as that was the final score: Washington 9-St.

Louis 1.

We Washington fans received some more good news today concerning Cade Cavalli as he

signed a three-year extension with the club, which locks him in through 2030. A great

statement by the owners of the team. And hopefully this is just the beginning.

Also, CJ Abrams joined the 30-30 club tonight by stealing his 30th base of the season to go

along with his 30 home runs. Congrats, CJ.!

Game two of the series will take place tomorrow evening, same time, same stadium.

Nationals Score Four in the Eleventh and Hold on for the Win

Saturday, September 19th

In what might be one of the strangest Nationals’ games I’ve covered this season as our

team blew a three-run lead going into the sixth inning, committing a total of four errors in

the process, but still managed to win a more exciting than it needed to be game against the

St. Louis Cardinals.

The Nationals had another fast start tonight. James Wood started off the top of the first

with a single to left field. Daylen Lile then stepped to the plate and smacked his 22nd

home run to center field. 2-0 Washington.

The score stayed that way until the top of the sixth. With one out Jorbit Vivas and Andrews

Chaparro hit back-to-back singles. The two runners advanced a base as Keibert Ruiz

grounded out to second. Nasim Nunez then ran out an infield single as Vivas scored. 3-0

good guys.

Andrew Alvarez threw a great first six innings for the Nats, shutting out the Cards on five hits

and striking out eight. But, like we’ve seen so many times before, that 3-0 lead didn’t last.

St. Louis finally broke through in the bottom of the seventh with the help of two fielding

errors by the Nationals. Masyn Winn reached first base on an error by Jorbit Vivas. Winn

advanced to second base off a Nathan Church ground out. With two outs Pedro Pages beat

out an infield single and advanced a base on a throwing error by Richard Lovelady. Winn

scored on the play. 3-2 Nats.

We then go to the bottom of the ninth. Nathan Church led off the inning with a double to

centerfield. Pedro Pages singled to left scoring Church. The Cardinals loaded the bases

with only one out but Yovanny Cruz was able to keep the game going into extra innings.

Great job, Yovanny!

With two outs in the top of the tenth, Jorbit Vivas singled to left field, scoring Jose Tena who

had started the inning on second base. 4-3 Nats.

But the Cards tied it in the bottom of the inning. Thomas Saggese grounded out sending

Leo Bernal to third. Masyn Winn then singled to right field scoring Bernal. 4-4.

The Nationals scored a bunch in the top of the eleventh. Keibert Ruiz led off with a single,

sending Yohandy Morales to third. Nasim Nunez walked loading the bases. Jacob Young

then reach first base on a catcher’s interference call. Morales scored on the play. With one

out Jose Tena doubled to left field scoring Ford and Nunez. After CJ Abrams is walked

intentionally, Dylan Crews hit a sacrifice fly to right field scoring Young. 8-4 Nats.

The Cardinals kept battling in the bottom of the eleventh. J.J. Wetherhold led off with a

single to center scoring Nathan Church. Alec Burleson then singled to center sending

Wetherholt to second. Jose Fermin walked, loading the bases. No outs, bases loaded, one

run already in, a disaster waiting to happen. But then Riley Cornelio struck out the next two

batters. Will Dion then came in and got Leo Bernal to fly out to right, ending the game. Dion

earned his first major league save. Washington wins 8-5.

How’s this for a stat: Only one of the Cardinals’ five runs was earned…

This is the type of game our Nationals lost during most of the season. It was great seeing

them win a contest like this for a change.

Game three of the series will take place tomorrow afternoon at 12:15 ET.

Cardinals Avoid Sweep with Three-Run Rally in the Eighth Inning

Sunday, September 20th

For the first few innings of this afternoon’s game, it looked like our Washington Nationals would hang on for a series sweep over the hometown St. Louis Cardinals. But, alas, it was not meant to be. It was the Cardinals who got out to the early lead in today’s game. With one out in the bottom of the first, Ivan Herrera homered to left field, his 17th of the year, giving St. Louis a 1-0 lead. The Nats tied it up in the top of the second. With one out Daylen Lile singled to center and advanced to third base on a single off the bat of Harry Ford. Jacob Young then scored Lile on a sacrifice fly to center. 1-1 tie. St. Louis took back the lead in the bottom of the third. Jose Fermin led off with a double to right. JJ Wetherholt later singled to center, scoring Fermin. 2-1 Cards. Our Nationals took over the lead in the top of the sixth. Brady House led off with a single to left. CJ Abrams then smacked a two-run home run to right field, his 31st. 3-2 good guys. And that’s the way it stayed until the bottom of the eight. With one out Ivan Herrera hit his second home run of the contest and 18th of the year to left field, tying the game. With two outs Jordan Walker walked. Leo Bernal then hit a two-run homer to left field, his 4 th of the year. 5-3 Cardinals. We couldn’t manage the sweep, but two out of three on the road isn’t bad. Jake Irvin started for the Nationals, going 5 1/3 innings while giving up two runs on three hits and striking out eight Cardinal batters. Erik Tolman and Yovanny Cruz gave up the winning runs in the eight inning, with Cruz taking the loss. Ivan Herrera was the hitting star for St. Louis. He went two for four with two home runs and a couple of RBIs. The Nationals season record stands at 73 wins and 83 losses. Washington travels to Detroit this evening and starts a three-game series with the Tigers tomorrow at 6:40 ET.

Dave’s Dime…Saving College Football and CU gets a much-deserved beat-down I’m sorry about this…I probably shouldn’t be talking about college football again, but I can’t stand what’s going on right now concerning player pay, the transfer portal, and the total mess the FBS conferences have become. I know I’ve talked about this before, but today we’ll focus on Nick Saban and his attempts to reign in this madness. And I just want to mention what happened last night in the Colorado Buffalos vs Northwestern Wildcats game in Evanston, Illinois. You won’t believe it. Nick Saban, one of the greatest college football coaches of all-time, recently went on national television to try and persuade the US Congress to pass the Protect College Sports Act. His commercial first hit the air waves on September 5th . Just this past Tuesday a major hurdle was cleared when the US Senate voted 74 to 24 to halt all debate and move the Protect College Sports Act one step closer to a final yea or nay vote. If passed in the Senate, the act would then be sent over to the House of Representatives. It’ll be tougher to get through this part of Congress, as the House has a history of defeating different attempts at passing a college sports bill.

1. Place into law the 22% cap on revenue colleges are allowed to share with their players. That’s about $21.5 million dollars. Now remember, not every college player gets paid. The big stars like Arch Manning are making out like bandits, the walk-ons and third stringers probably get no more than a scholarship. Which still isn’t bad, if you think about it.

2. This second part would give college conferences the option of pooling their TV media rights, which could raise anywhere from $4 to $8 billion in additional revenue. Some of the bigger conferences, like the SEC and the Big Ten, disagree with this idea. Probably because the bigger schools like Ohio State and LSU don’t want to share their massive TV money with smaller conference schools that don’t generate as much revenue.

3. Now this one I really like…Players would be allowed only one “free” transfer from their current school to another school offering them more money. In the past, a player would have to sit out a year if they wished to transfer schools. Now, college players transfer three or four times during their career. It’s absolutely ridiculous.

4. I also like this one quite a bit…A player’s eligibility would be for five years at the most, no more. This would get rid of the twenty-seven-year-old sophomore playing in his eighth season due to red shirting and injury waivers and who knows what else. Oh, and no player would be able to attend an NFL training camp, not make the cut, and go running back to a college campus looking for a job.

Please do some more research on this topic, if interested. I could go on and on, but I

certainly realize that some of you may not be as passionate about this subject as I

obviously am.

One more thing I’d like to mention…in last night’s college football game between the

visiting Colorado Buffalos and the home team Northwestern Wildcats, a not so nice

conversation was overheard as the Buffalos were waiting to take the field.

It seems Northwestern is playing in a temporary stadium while their main facility is going

through some major improvements. In the meantime, the football team is playing at the

much smaller Northwestern Medicine Field at Martin Stadium with a capacity between

twelve and fourteen thousand. The new and improved Ryan Field is set to open later this

year.

I’ll clean up the dialogue a little…here it is…now remember these are Colorado players

standing just inside the stadium while waiting to run onto to field…

“This place f..king sucks.” “Sh.t sounds like a f..king library.”

Not nice, guys. One of my favorite replies to this post was, “No way any Colorado player

knows what a library sounds like.” Now that’s funny.

Then these clowns got beat down 41 to 7.

And to make matters worse, head coach Deion Sanders then went off on a couple players

he was walking behind after the game was over, who were joking around and laughing on

their way back to the locker room. Everyone knows you don’t joke around and laugh after

losing a game 41 to 7. You just don’t.

And as Deion put it… “How can you have joy in a loss? I can’t understand that. Especially

when I’m walking right behind you. I’m going to put my foot in it…not on it.”

And some of the best responses to that situation dealt with the fact that some of these

players are being paid the same amount of money win or lose. That’s all it’s about now. No

pride, no responsibility, no loyalty, no guts.

Something has to be done…good luck, Coach Saban.