Baseball is a game that every now and then causes you to wonder why you’re a fan — unless you root for the Yankees. Tonight I watched a game that made me feel this way.
The only thing worse than being out of town for Washington’s first baseball postseason since 1933 is watching it end the way it did, with the best team in baseball (in the regular season) losing Game 5 at home after knocking out the opposing starter with six runs in three innings. Too many walks that resulted from way too many pitches nibbling around the outside corner. The pitching, which had been so good for so long this season, failed them in the biggest moment in Washington in 79 years.
Davey Johnson, who’s been masterful throughout the season in managing this team, brings in Edwin Jackson for some odd reason in the seventh inning. Just because it worked with Jordan Zimmermann last night doesn’t mean it would work with EJax the next night. Jackson got lit up in his start earlier this week, and he gave up a couple of crucial runs. This came after Gio had failed to finish off what had been to that point a pretty good start. Jackson was followed by Tyler Clippard, who has shown a worrisome propensity for giving up home runs at the worst possible time this year. He did so again tonight, but, believe it or not, he didn’t kill the Nats. At least he didn’t hand the game over. That job fell to Drew Storen, who had been pretty much automatic recently. His control completely failed him as he tried to stay away from hitters instead of just challenging them in situations where they probably couldn’t have won the game all by themselves. By doing this, he put himself into a situation where the Cards *could* win the game on a single Nats mistake.
The Cardinals did something unprecedented in the playoffs, coming back from such a deficit, and also capping it off after being down two runs heading to the top of the ninth. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that the Nationals handed them this game on a silver platter.
Does this negate what has been a great season? No, not really. However, it does put a major damper on it. What a bummer.
Oh, well. At least I wasn’t home for this one.