‘_MG_0847’
courtesy of ‘dbking’
We’ve got ourselves another Nationals (18-15) rubber game to play this afternoon at Citi Field. Right-hander Craig Stammen (1-1, 5.63), who is coming off a strong start against the Marlins last week at Nationals Park, enters today’s Mets (18-15) game with a Nationals team who has gone 5-1 in rubber game match-ups this season. New York is 0-5.
The Nationals continue to stay above .500 this season due to success in close games and series finales. Washington is 8-3 in one-run games this season while four of their five rubber game wins have come by a single run.
Washington has seen their fair share of close late-inning games in 2010, but tend to win in the end. Not this time.
Last night’s 8-6 loss was a heart breaker. It was especially rough since the Nats pretty much locked up the game early on in the run count. They led by three runs after the first, five after the fifth and four after the seventh. Then — something we have yet to see this season occurred — Tyler Clippard combined with Brian Bruney let the Mets score six runs in the eighth, squandering the lead and the game for the first Nationals loss while leading by five runs.
The Nationals three-game win streak is snapped, giving the Mets the slight advantage momentum-wise going into today’s contest despite their rubber game loss count – a direct result of a late-inning come back Tuesday night.
New York has won the past four series played at Citi Field. Whoever wins this afternoon will obtain sole possession of second place in the division.
Game starts at 1:10 p.m.
Rachel moved to DC in the fall of 2005 to study Journalism and Music at American University. When she’s not keeping up with the latest Major League Baseball news, she works on making music as an accomplished singer-songwriter and was even a featured performer/speaker at TEDxDupont Circle in 2012. Rachel has also contributed to The Washington Examiner and MASN Sports’ Nationals Buzz as a guest blogger. See why she loves DC. E-Mail: rachel@welovedc.com.
