Nats Limp Home After Rough Road Trip

The Washington Nationals finished a disastrous road trip through Atlanta and Philadelphia winning only yesterday’s game and losing the other seven. The journey started with an outside chance of making the playoffs, and ended with two starting infielders and their ace pitcher playing for different teams, and one of their All-Star outfielders on the injured list.

Miles Mikolas took the mound tonight for the Nationals. He’s 3 and 9 for the year with a 5.89 ERA.

Christopher Sanchez started for the Phillies. He’s having a great year with a 15-4 record and a minuscule 2.65 ERA.

Philadelphia started fast with two runs in the 1st inning. Trea Turner beat out an infield single. Bryce Harper walked. Luis Arraez followed with a double to right scoring Turner. Alec Bohm smacked another double to right scoring Harper. 2-0 Phillies.

The Nationals got one back in the top of the 2nd. Harry Ford doubled to center. Jacob Young singled to right, scoring Ford. 2-1 Philadelphia.

The Phillies scored again in the bottom of the inning. J.T. Realmuto doubled to left. Justin Crawford later singled to right, scoring Realmuto. 3-1 Phillies.

Philly really opened it up in the bottom of the 3rd. Bryce Harper doubled to right. After two outs, Brandon Marsh also doubled to right, scoring Harper. J. T. Realmuto singled to center, scoring Marsh. Bryson Stott continued the onslaught with a double to right, scoring Realmuto. 6-1 bad guys.

The Nats got one back in the top of the 4th when Andrew Pinckney hit his first major league home run over the center field wall. 6-2 Nationals. Congrats, Andrew!

Washington got another one back in the top of the 6th. Jacob Young tripled to right field and later scored on a single courtesy of Keibert Ruiz. 6-3 Philadelphia.

The Phillies finished the scoring for the evening in the bottom of the 6th. Bryson Stott hit another doubled to center field. Kyle Schwarber sent Stott home with a single to right. 7-3 Phillies.

The Nationals went down in order over the last three innings.

Mikolas stuck it out for 5 tough innings, giving up 6 runs on 12 hits.

Sanchez went 5 innings for the Phillies. He gave up 2 runs on 6 hits while striking out 6. Four Philly relievers held Washington to 1 run on 2 hits with 6 more whiffs.

The Nationals continue an arduous stretch of 17 games in a row without a day off with a home game tomorrow against the Reds. Game time 6:45 ET.

The Nats are now 56 and 61, winning just 2 of their last 10 games.

There is no joy in Washington D.C. tonight…

Dave’s Dime…more baseball history…

Last week we started our investigation into the history of baseball in the good old U.S of A. We ended with a little discussion on Abner Doubleday, the man who was credited by some with pretty much inventing the game of baseball even though he never claimed to have done so in his own words.

Now if you remember, Doubleday was a famous Civil War general who fired the first shot at Fort Sumter, the battle that started the war, and also played a pivotal role in the Battle of Gettysburg.

And even though Doubleday probably had little to do with inventing baseball, the game itself was quite popular during the Civil War (1861-1865).

In fact, there’s a rather famous Currier and Ives lithograph that depicts Abraham Lincoln and the other three candidates for the 1860 Presidential Election. Lincoln was running that year against John Bell, Stephen A. Douglas, and John C. Breckinridge. It’s a fascinating story as to how there ended up being four legitimate candidates running for President in the election of 1860. Dust off your old high school American History textbook and look it up.

In this lithograph, Lincoln is standing on “home base” with a ball and bat in his hands, and the other three candidates are standing near a skunk, signifying that they’d just been “skunk’d” by Lincoln and his totally awesome baseball skills. The full title of the lithograph is “The National Game. Three ‘Outs’ and One ‘Run’. Abraham Winning the Ball.” And that early baseball player turned out to be our greatest President in history. Way to go, Abe!

Every time I hear the name Abraham Lincoln, I think of one of my all-time favorite movies, “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure”. Old Abe had a guest role in that film. If you haven’t seen it, please put it on your list.

Baseball, during the time of the Civil War, was better known in northeastern cities like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Even on the front-lines, baseball became an important pastime for the soldiers. Other physical activities included foot races, boxing, wrestling,

some football and cricket, but according to historians, baseball seems to have been the sport of choice in both the Union and Confederate army camps. Every camp probably had its own set of rules. But so what...that just made it more interesting.

Soon after the fighting stopped, the first truly professional baseball team was formed. This was the Cincinnati Red Stockings. They joined what was called the National Association of Base Ball Players in 1869. Professional baseball had begun. Now at this time there was still some friction between those who wanted to keep baseball purely amateur and those who wanted to go pro.

But, in 1871, the top professional teams founded their own organization: the National

Association of Professional Base Ball Players. The league lasted only five seasons. The five teams were the New York Knickerbockers, the Union of Morrisania (the Bronx), Mutual (New York), Athletic (Philadelphia), and the Chicago White Stockings.

The National League was founded in 1876. We’ll start from there next time.

Trivia Time…

On August 6, 1986, the Texas Rangers and Baltimore Orioles combined for three grand slams in a single game. Texas was responsible for one of them, and the Orioles hit the other two in the same inning! Dang!

On August 6, 1993, Tony Gwynn, of the San Diego Padres, collected the 2,000th hit of his career.

On August 6, 1999, exactly six years later, Gwynn went 4 for 5 and smacked the 3,000th hit of his illustrious career. Nice job, Tony.

On August 6, 2001, The Red Sox’s Scott Hatteberg lined into a triple play in the 4th inning. On his next at bat in the 6th inning, he hit a grand slam home run. It was all or nothing for that guy…

Have a great weekend.

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