‘scooting through’
courtesy of ‘philliefan99’

April baseball can be a peculiar thing. The Nationals today displayed that peculiarity in all of its ugliness before a crowd of 22,210, surrendering 11 runs to the Braves,

Despite a month of Spring Training ball, both the Braves and Nationals made some ugly miscues in the field this afternoon.  In the bottom of the first, Braves’ veteran Chipper Jones crossed in front of Jayson Werth on the basepath, inciting a collision that threw Werth off his balance and cost him a few steps. He turned 3rd and headed for home to be thrown out, but awarded the run on obstruction.

Twice the Nationals’ outfielders ran into trouble with balls in the right-center gap, with Werth and Ankiel having some miscommunication over who was playing lead.  The biggest defensive trouble came from Danny Espinosa today, whose efforts in the fifth formally cost him an error and the Nationals a run, but that was just one of four plays on the day that hurt the Nationals in the field.

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