Nationals end four game losing streak in extra innings

The Washington Nationals defeated the Baltimore Orioles in ten-innings, due partly to

some half-way decent relief pitching and a throw from the infield cutting down a base

runner at home that would have tied the game.

The Nats opened the scoring in their half of the 2nd with Jorbit Vivas’s single driving in

Daylen Lile who had doubled earlier in the inning.

The Orioles tied it up in the bottom half of the 2nd courtesy of a single by Chadwick Tromp,

scoring Blaze Alexander who led off the inning with a single.

The score stayed tied until Luis Garcia led off the top of the 5th with a home run, his 14th, to

right field. Good guys up 2-1.

Washington added a run in the 6th courtesy of a throwing error and a fielding error by Blaze

Alexander on the same play that left Jorbit Vivas standing on second base. He later scored

on a single by Drew Millas. Nats up by two.

Unfortunately, history repeated itself one more time as the Orioles scored two runs in the

bottom of the 8th when Chadwick Tromp led off the inning with a single and later scored off

a double from Pete Alonso. Alonso then scored when Samuel Basallo singled to center.

Neither team scored in the 9th and the fans were treated to some extra baseball.

Daylen Lile started off the top of the 10th with a single to right scoring Dylan

Crews. Washington up 4-3. Our casual fans may not know that starting in 2024 a runner is

placed at second base at the beginning of an extra-inning game. The rule was implemented

in an attempt to shorten the length of regular season games. This rule does not apply

during the postseason.

The Nationals’ relief corps finally came through in the bottom of the inning, but it wasn’t

easy. Jackson Holliday grounded out to Luis Garcia, but Jerimiah Jackson, who started the

inning standing at second base, ended up on third. Taylor Ward hit another grounder and

Jackson was thrown out at the plate. Gunner Henderson then singled, the bases were

loaded after Pete Alonso walked. But lo and behold, Samuel Basallo grounded out to

second to end the game…Nationals win!

Foster Griffin had another quality start for the Nationals, pitching seven innings of three hit

ball, allowing just one run. He struck out nine and walked one. Justin Lawrence managed

to earn his first save of the season even though he gave up a hit and a walk in the bottom of

the 10th. Whew…that was intense!

The Nationals climbed back to .500 at 42-42. The Beltway Series concludes tomorrow

afternoon with a 1:35 EDT starting time.

Dave’s Dime…It was the summer of 1961. The summer of the Yankees. The summer of

Maris and Mantle. The race for 61 home runs. The attempt to break Babe Ruth’s

unbreakable record. The summer I turned ten years old.

But I’ll bet most people don’t realize how much happened the winter before that

memorable 1961 season. And a great deal of what happened concerned the original

Washington D.C. Major League Baseball team, the Washington Senators.

MLB expanded during the winter of 1961 for the first time since 1901…yes, I said

1901. Both of the expansion teams ended up in the American League. Why, you may

ask? Well, this all started when the original Washington Senators moved to Minneapolis

St. Paul and became the Minnesota Twins. So, the American League created a new

expansion team and kept it in Washington. Because there were now an uneven number of

teams in the American League, they were somewhat forced to create another new team to

keep things even. And that’s why a second major league franchise was placed in the Los

Angeles area and became the Los Angeles Angels.

Why did the Senators relocate? Poor attendance for one thing, and the lure of a growing

market in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region that brought with it hopes of more revenue and

the promise of one million fans per year. Who wouldn’t take that deal?

But now MLB was in a panic. There was no major league team in the Washington D.C.

area. The American League actually tried to block the Senators from relocating. They

feared congress would no longer allow them to keep their antitrust exemption. So, what do

you think the American League did? Well, they created an entirely new franchise and just

replaced the old Washington Senators, who had packed up and moved to the Land of

10,000 Lakes, with a brand new, fresh out of the wrapper, expansion team. Makes perfect

sense, right?

Well, the American League supposedly solved a huge problem. But, wait a minute, now

there were nine teams in the American League. An uneven number. Now remember,

baseball didn’t schedule interleague games back then, so that would mean there’d always

be at least one team that didn’t play on any given day. They couldn’t have that, could they?

What to do? Well, what they came up with made perfect sense. They created another

expansion team, located them in the Los Angeles metro area, named them the Los Angeles

Angels, under the ownership of an old cowboy actor and singer named Gene Autry. As

Mark Twain once was attributed with saying “truth is stranger than fiction.”

But, this unbalanced number of teams in each league meant that the National League’s

schedule remained at 154 games that year, but the American League was forced to add 8

games to each team’s schedule, since there were two new teams, hence the total of 162

games. The number of games both leagues play today. I’ll bet you didn’t know that little

piece of baseball history, huh?

And, do you Washington fans remember what happened to that expansion Senators team

from 1961? They ended up relocating to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area in 1971 and became the

Texas Rangers. Why did the Senators move to Dallas? Same reason they moved to

Minneapolis-St. Paul in 1961. But I guess this time congress was so over the idea of

needing a Major League Baseball team in the Washington D.C. area that they didn’t say

anything about MLB’s antitrust designation.

Washington D.C. was without a major league team until 2005 when the expansion Montreal Expos relocated to our nation’s capital.

And if you understood all of that after reading through it once or twice, you might be ready

to try high school Algebra.

One of the reasons I’ve enjoyed writing this sports column is revisiting and discovering the

unique, unusual, and sometimes downright unbelievable history of Major League

Baseball. And I’ve just scratched the surface…

Oh, I’ll write some more on the ’61 Yankees in tomorrow’s column.

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